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Q: What's the best way of finding out about foreign firms hiring in China?
I met a person who's got an interview coming up with a big international company with an office in China but I didn't see it advertising for the opening on any of the job sites here. How do these people find out about some of these lucrative vacancies. Is really all just through connections? Or linkedin maybe? Any other "secret" sources anyone would like to share?
10 years 45 weeks ago in Business & Jobs - China
Ask him.
Different roads leads to Rome.
Guanxi, Linkedin, western connections, headhunters, etc.
Or start your own company and hire yourself.
Do a search on www.linkedin.com then approach the people owning (or managing) the companies directly. Networking remains the most effective medium though. There are many events organized by the likes of the Supply Chain Council or BVMW where you can attend and meet executives face to face. Even bars and restaurants in popular expat areas offer networking opportunity. Other than that, there are occasional job fairs for foreigners in China that are sometimes advertised on this very site.
happywanderer:
Kaiwen, could you possibly elaborate on how to make best use of linkedin? I realize that probably sounds silly but I don't really get how to use it in that way. I mean it's not like google so I can't just search for e.g. "companies hiring in china". AFAIK linkedin is useful if you already have contacts, but if you don't happen to know loads of HR people and managers already then it's of limited use - am I missing something here?
sam239:
Happywanderer, just join some relevant groups (such as China Expats and Returnees, or local expat groups) on LinkedIn, contribute to their discussions, scan through others' profiles. It's also worthwhile to make a quality profile for yourself. You can then network with other participants in the groups and go from there.
happywanderer:
Like ya thinking Sam. I'll definitely try that, thanks :)
What most locals do is look at a big local job site (like Zhaopin, 51job, or ChinaHR - usually Zhaopin), and on the home page there are loads of logos for big companies. They're the ones hiring. But since most of these middle-men jobsites are kinda rubbish (you can apply on a jobsite but how do you know the HR dept of the relevant company ever actually receives your CV?), people usually then look up the company website and check for positions there. There is often a mismatch between positions listed by the company and on jobsites so sometimes you might end up applying for two different positions not knowing if one is already filled or not. Unfortunately that needs to be done because there are actually a lot of fake adverts on jobsites to bump up their listings - it's a known problem and has been in local media several times.
