Finding Internships and Graduate Work in China

Written by Jialing Chu, MSc Commercial Project Management, 2020

Jialing graduated from The University of Manchester in 2020 with an MSc in Commercial Project Management. She has a job lined up at Deloitte for October 2021. Here she talks about her job search in China.

“While trying to find a job, I planned to get an internship that could become permanent. By working as an intern in a company, I would know whether I liked it and if I was suited to that role. This helped me understand whether I wanted to stay there after graduation. I followed the WeChat recruitment official account of the companies that I wanted to work for, and explored their on-campus recruitment information. Additionally, I joined recruitment WeChat groups, which post recruitment information of big companies.

Contacts are very important for internships: I joined internship groups online, and friends recommended roles to me and referred me for jobs. This helped me to get internships at Tencent, from May 2020 for 2 months, and at JD from September, both in Beijing. During the internships, I learned more about the job market and started career planning. I thought about what I wanted to do, what roles suit my skillset, and which city I would like to live and work in.

I decided I was interest in a management-consulting role at the Chengdu office of Deloitte. In my application, I summarised my characteristics and skills, and how they made me suitable for this position. Then, for each point, I described my experience, actions and results – I had many examples because of the internships I had done. As a result, I got an interview! Before the interview, I consulted my network about the important points of the industry, analysed the job description for the position, and matched my experiences and skills to those outlined in the person description. During the interview, I showed the interviewer my motivation for the company and understanding of the position, and explained how I matched the job description and experience. I also shared the recommendation letters I had received and kept in touch with HR after the interview. Ultimately, I received an offer from Deloitte as an Analyst-Organisation in Transformation-Human Capital-Consulting and I will start my job in October 2021.”

Jialing’s top tips for graduate job hunting are:

• Follow companies you are interested in and research their recruitment information. The earlier you apply, the higher the probability of success.
• Analyse the job description to understand what kind of personality, experience and skills they are looking for.
• Build connections for career development, skill endorsements, job opportunities and references.
• Additionally, if you are looking for work in China, remember that internships are very important in the Chinese job market.

Don’t forget that you can use the Careers Service for up to two years after you finish your degree. Find out more about our graduate careers support, to help with your job search, for advice on applications and interviews, or for information about searching for jobs outside of the UK. You can also book guidance appointments, or view opportunities and find careers events on CareerConnect.

Graduate Graduate jobs International Student blogs China Graduate jobs graduatestories international jobs Internships