Title: China Connect Employer Insight Panel - Recruitment & Selection Methods in China (17/03/22)
Duration: 1:01:15
All right good morning everyone or good afternoon to those of you that aren't in the UK. Welcome everyone to our BMW Birmingham Nottingham Warwick China Connect Employer Insight panel event, and we're really glad that you can join us, and we have a really, really exciting host of panellists today, so thank you to our panellists. We are very excited to be sharing a little bit of information in terms of the recruitment and selection process in China, with some hints and tips and insight into getting a job in China, so without further ado we'll start with some introductions of each of our panellists and the companies, and so first Wei - if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself?
Yeah sure, hello everyone, thank you Cate for giving us this opportunity to join in this panel, and I have to thank Stephen for organising everything. My name is Wei and I am currently the leader of overseas recruitment of Midea Group, so as I think every Chinese student should know like what does Midea do? We make home appliances - home electronic appliances, that's for most students their understanding, but right now we have more business to be going on. So I want to share a little bit more information about our business. So as you can see we have five segments: Smart Home Appliances is our first one, but we still have Industrial Technologies, Building Technologies, Robotics and our Automation and Digital Innovation business, and we are running different brands all over the world. So we are really excited to be heading to the next era of our Midea Group, that's why we want to be a more globalized company. So right now we have 28 R&D centres and 34 product centres, so that's the reason why we want to broaden our overseas recruitment to have more graduates with overseas experience to join Midea.
Actually I was a graduate - I studied in the US for two years before I joined Midea and my background experience gave me the opportunity to be the leader of overseas recruiting team, and I have been working in Midea for four years. Before I became the talent acquisition specialist, I was working for the corporate culture which Chinese students might know, so I have a comprehensive understanding of what is Midea doing and what we are going to be doing in the future. So I love to have more students to have a chat with me. So actually we prepared a QR code - WeChat code - so if anyone who are interested in working in Midea they could join in this recruitment WeChat group so we could have further communication. That's my self-introduction, thank you guys.
Thank you Wei that was really interesting and now we're going to move on to Koni so, one moment, I'm just going to share my screen for your slides.
Sure thank you.
Hello everyone, this is Koni from Avery Dennison retail branding information and solutions group, from the HR department, and personally I've been with Avery Dennison and growing up together with Avery Dennison for already six years, and I'm so happy to be here with you and share about Avery Dennison, and also some great ideas about our management training program today. So actually Avery Dennison is a global leader of the manufacturing and the material science and our headquarters is located in Ohio in US. So actually up to now we have our operations over 50+ countries with more than 35,000 employees worldwide. Also we have different kind of prestigious employer reputation in Asia so as you can see like being listed on the Fortune 500 continuously, and started our business in Asia um like back to 1995, particularly in Greater China, so it makes us a very sustainable and solid assistance in this industry. We can see that we have eight favourite values; we believe these eight values makes everyone as a team at work, so like with our continuously innovative and sustainable solutions to our branch clients. Working in a diverse equal and inclusive work environment and as a team to together drive excellence and make a positive impact to our customers and society is very important to us and to externals.
You can see what is RBIS which is the Retail Branding and Information Solutions, so we can go to the next slide to see what kind of products we produce and work with our clients, and actually all these products and solutions are all around us every day - so no matter the clothes you are wearing, on your favourite sports team jersey, or even like when you do the self-service checkout in the retail shop. So these are totally the intelligence, creative and sustainable solutions to elevate our brand, and also they accelerate the performance. So just a quick look and you can see some examples here that I do think everybody is familiar with, and it's not just global brands, but also Asia China brands as well. So what makes a difference? You can see from the next slide that to be the leader in this industry, I would say our global operations network, our world-class insights and creative resources, the updated technology and digitalization services, can help our customers dramatically increase their inventory visibility to operational excellence, and build their unique brands.
But of course, last but not least, is about how we can provide the solution to them with a very high consideration of the environmental issues and sustainability. So the next slide will be a very brief talk about like um after understanding about Avery Dennison so you can also build a future with us under this gold program - which is a management training program. So you can see this year we have six streams that are opening for the graduates, as well there are the two-year programs with different job rotations across the regions, with different opportunities across the functions. So we believe this will be a journey or like, um fast track, to transform yourself to be a great leader.
But last but not least like with the global record environment that we have talked about, the opportunities to be a part of the global project team, to gain the global vision, with the diverse opportunities open to everyone, and with the mentoring by our top leaders, this will be driving a quality of growth to yourself, to strengthen not just the functional expertise but also some soft skills that you may have - like the leadership skills, that's your entrepreneur views as well. So this program will be kind of a promising career for you to start as a graduate, so that's all about Avery Dennison and our management training program, so we can further discuss a little bit more later. I will hand over back to Cate. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing Koni. And finally we have Gianluca Fricasso who is a talent acquisition manager. He's going to be talking a little bit about what he does as well.
Thank you Cate. Hi everyone it's great to be virtually with you - calling you from Shanghai - and I'm originally Italian, but I've been in China for quite a while, actually ever since my graduation in 2011 - so it's been 11 years already. Been always working in China. I can share a bit of my experience - I'm currently with Tencent - you probably know is a huge Chinese company behind WeChat. I do global talent acquisition as Tencent has also started to build the infrastructure to go global. From an HR perspective. But I'm happy you know Tencent has clearly a campus recruitment program. You can follow our WeChat - we have Tencent talking in Chinese and I see that they regularly post updates, and feel free to check the positions and apply. But yeah in general I've also I'm a graduate from marketing - I have a sort of marketing and advertising background. I can also share maybe later some tips from the other industry as I did this switch from marketing to HR and yeah when I did marketing it was mostly about the China market; how as a foreigner I would bridge maybe Chinese company coming to China doing localised marketing um and uh before Ten..., I joined TenCent last year so it's really something a bit new for me. Before that I worked in Alibaba. I know many of our graduates are interested in Alibaba by TenCent uh media this sort of big uh new technology Chinese companies. So yeah I was in Anjo and again it was a bit more marketing content type of role but we had also many interns and many fresh graduates joining us. So there are definitely I think lots of opportunities, especially springtime, we can chat later. But yeah Alibaba, TenCent, Huawei, ByteDance - these are very big companies in China. Maybe there's developing abroad but in China they're very mature, so they yeah that they have managed very high volumes and they're definitely interested in having graduates like you especially with that kind of study experience from abroad - like in your case you studied in England - so that kind of cross-cultural profile I think that's still very valuable here in China in the job market. So yes that's me, just very quick intro and yeah we can definitely chat later. Back to you Cate.
Thank you Gianluca, that's really interesting as well. It's just really nice to hear about three very different companies and learn about some of your roles and what you've got available. So I'm sure all of our students are really kind of excited to hear from you, so without further ado I thought we would kind of get stuck into the panel discussion side of things and start getting down to what we call the nitty-gritty, and asking some of the questions that I'm sure our students are dying to hear about the process. I just wanted to add a little note as well for any of our students who are participating in this panel session, please do feel free to add questions throughout in the chat. You will also have an opportunity at the end to ask questions, but if you have anything throughout that we can answer or help with, then do put them in the chat section as well.
So first things first I wanted to talk a little bit about the recruitment process in itself and we know that a lot of larger UK companies and some multinational companies will follow kind of a very standard pattern in terms of their recruitment process, you know, it'll be an application and then maybe some testing, an interview, an assessment centre. I just wanted to hear from yourselves how does that differ at your company, or what is the recruitment process from start to finish for each of your individual companies? I don't know, Koni, would you like to go first?
Yeah sure so I can share a little bit like Avery Dennison style. So actually overall the recruitment process for us, it's more like they're divided in three key stages before the offering stage. We have the pre-selection stage, which includes some AI interviews, group interviews virtually, and then we will go to our psychometric test for the shortlisted candidates, and at last it will be like the final Assessment Centre. So for this assessment centre which is we will use like a hybrid model being assessed by our top leaders in the company so um through this assessment centre I think the candidates have a really great opportunity that they can expose to a practical corporate case study experience and to gain the business insights from our senior leaders and also to experience like how you usually work in a global company on a project with different um locations with different diverse backgrounds and also work as a team worldwide.
Great thank you for that insight. Gianluca and Wei do you have anything else to add to that or is there anything that your organisations do slightly differently?
I can share quickly at TenCent and I think again Alibaba in general the process is also quite straightforward in terms of you apply online um I think Chinese companies are definitely or companies in China in general they're definitely very mature online so you do need to apply online submit your CV again uh WeChat is a very good channel many brands have a WeChat um you know little programs so I encourage you um to follow different brands again not just Tencent but could be Alibaba Xiaoping Huawei Xiaoping and usually you can submit your application. The process itself it's usually three rounds so yeah not as um kind of casual with the recruiter just to get an idea of your profile um second one I would say is a bit more important you typically talk with the team manager or team leader who probably manage the team where you are likely to work into and third one is also sort of wrap up with a recruiter or HR to agree on some admin details but yeah we I have to say we don't in terms of assessment psychometric assessment we don't do - it's pretty much kind of a friendly chat um again about CV experience uh what you think you can bring to the company um so I think this applies both to my recent experiences Alibaba and TenCent um if you if some of you you're probably based in the UK but if some of you are in China some companies are also actually coming to the campus meeting students um so that could also be an extra opportunity if you have friends who you know could be interested because um there are sharings especially in April and May period I think yeah.
Thank you.
I could add more information based on that as we are doing the uh as the previous speaker talked about we are doing the on-site we went to we go to the campus and introduce our companies to students actually we went to the US the UK before the pandemic so hopefully we could go to overseas cities countries this year or next year and actually so right now we are actually hiring as well so for us we have Spring campus recruitment season and Autumn campus recruitment season so the Spring recruitment is shorter than the Autumn one but right now we have positions hiring so I could share some information to our audience right now. Here is the hiring process - so for now we have such positions opening technology and management positions as well and we also have students how to apply so students can scan the code from the left to apply for the Spring campus recruitment positions if they are going to graduate in this Autumn and this season will be ended on March 13th, and after March 13th we will start our summer internship recruitment right after this time and recruitment.
We recruit students from all over the world so you guys could also you know just scan the code and get to know the latest information. And the hiring process is that you could apply online through PC or mobile devices. After application you will receive an online test it's a competency and psychological evaluation such as for instance communication and cooperation competencies things like that and for our Spring recruitment season students will get their feedback in 10 days whether you pass it or you didn't pass the test if you pass the test you will be you will be put to the video interview round because especially for overseas students we couldn't do on-site interview and the video interview will be two rounds for students who are applying role offline positions on management such as HR finance and they would have a group interview and for students who are applying positions for instance IT, manufacturing and R&D positions they will have one 1:1 interview with the managers so after the interview you will get feedback before April - 10 days. So this is the hiring process for us.
That's great thank you all so much for sharing that. I think that um it's just really nice to know how different companies um kind of lay out their recruitment and hiring process and it's nice to see that there are some similarities with that but there are also things that are unique to each of your organisations as well so I think students will find that really helpful just to get a bit of further insight as to what that recruitment process could look like for them in terms of internships um can you tell me a little bit more about what type of internships you offer and what um what that internship might look like whether it's um you know the duration of it or um the type of activities that interns will participate in as well.
Uh yeah I could start first so for the internship we actually started internship program since uh two years before because we want to have students get to know Midea before they graduate and to decide if they want to work for more work in Midea after they graduate so for this kind of program students could come in Midea and the duration could be from two weeks to three months the reason why we have like two weeks internship is that we are considering the if students have special needs to go back to school early but we still inviting them we are really welcome for them to join in Midea and see how business is running in our company so that's why we're giving this and the first students who join in this program we would give them pairing them with tutor and mentor so they could be guided to how to work in their position as well as how to get to know the city they will be working in so we are in Guangdong Province it's a it's a southern part of China and it's hot in the summer hot and so like people might want to know more about what's interesting about this city and to explore so we have that kind of a partnership as well and also we offer the opportunity to be transferred from internship to 'official', to be our colleagues, you have that opportunity so after the internship you will have um overall evaluation to say if you are a suitable fit for the application so for the position you will have been working in and if you passed the evaluation you will get a formal offer so you don't need to apply again for the you know formal job after you finish the internship so it's a really good opportunity for those who want to know about our company.
Thank you. Was there anything else to add um from either of the other panellists about internships or how internships are run?
Um yeah we have internship in different job functions so you can definitely explore - again official website, you can also check our career website, there's a specific section on campus recruitment but could be HR marketing product development uh engineering uh we are... typical internships also last um three months three to six months similar to what Wei was presenting um we offer internships in China but we can also onboard virtually for example um we have an office in Amsterdam that could be an option um also in London um so we are also gradually you know open to the idea of having interns um not just physically in China but again they can support some small functions that we have in Europe and us as well and um yeah you typically don't need to commit to a daily um to come to office every day again it's usually three days at work but sometimes you'll be given some um small tasks depending on the job function but um I have different interns in my team and are pretty much you know the it's not like "oh they're interns", you're pretty much you can fit into the team and you typically help managers for some tasks for example in HR uh they help us on searching, search, um and yeah you're part of the team culture and uh many of our interns also sometimes stay and um get that offer to become formal employees so I think that part is pretty similar to what Wei was presenting.
Um as for Avery Dennison actually we also like have internship openings over a year in different departments as well and also similar time maybe like a between three to six months but I think for the students or graduates attending the panel today I think they can also when they're planning for their future they also think about other internships maybe like a management training program for their future development could also um another choice or another path for after they graduate so for example um let's say Avery Dennison like their management training program it will be opened up in operations, digital manufacturing, we have Finance, IT, commercial, HR and also some kind of particular like a global compliance department as well so they can really enjoy to work in a global environment cross-functions cross regions as well yes so I will just add on that part for graduate or students.
That's great, thank you all. I think one of the things that um we can all agree on is that work experience and internships are such a valuable way for students to not only get that um experience that can help them in the recruitment process later on or you know indeed to help them kind of skip a large chunk of the recruitment process if they're successful in the internship but also to give them real insight into what it would be like working for a company. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about um things that some of our students can do whilst they're studying with us in the UK or some of our students are still studying um kind of remotely from China but what can students do whilst they're at University to make themselves more employable with your organisations?
Maybe I can start first? So um so besides all that like our Avery Dennison values but I think um both currently we want to see your true self during each stage of the assessments just so just be yourself and we want to see the great potential of you and usually we are looking for to the students like a bold and creative thinker um lead with impact um being innovative and being agile as well and then um yeah I think these are the key points I want to share like how to stand out during interviews but for sure during the presentations um also like a group discussion as well um like to be a good listener to make sure I show the great teamwork and inclusive chemistry because during the assessment and we are gathering the talents and students around the world not just on particularly on site so this is the tips or whether sharing they are getting.
Thank you, does anyone else have anything to add in terms of what um students can do whilst they're studying to make themselves stand out? Any type of side project I would say um it's a good idea um but also you know you could be a content producer maybe you have your own blog or you edit videos for the University I think these are all skills you know content production also marketing uh design maybe you are designing um some type of content that could all be relevant to a marketing type of job design organizing events, even charity, um I'm sure you know at the University there are usually many charity fundraising opportunities so this type of skill set uh starting something planning your idea proposing and organising it making it happen I think these are all excellent skills for potential employers.
Uh yeah so from my point of view actually I talked with Tina, who's also on the panel, yesterday about what are the advantages of our overseas students and why we stress so much on overseas recruitment. So as for Midea right now we are the... we have the biggest portion of home electronic appliances market in China it's time for us to go abroad to go over the world actually we have business around the world but for right now we want to uh promote our Midea brand much more overseas so we need students we need our colleagues to be more to have more international side of view and this is the first most important thing the second thing is uh as students who have studied abroad, they are remoted from their parents their friends they start from their role so from our side of view like they could be more independent when they are faced with difficulties they will try to find ways to solve those problems by themselves so it's very important because in our company the works phase is pretty quick so we need to have the ability to ask questions, to ask for resources, to solve problems - so that's a really important skill for overseas students. The third thing of course is language and we have overseas business we are going to have more experts from overseas so English uh being good at English could help them to communicate more and to have and also being in a different country and get to know other culture help them to you know to try to understand others better because you have been involved in a different culture and you are forced to be you know a foreigner and to know how it feels to be kind of isolated from the beginning so it's easier for you to understand others to have sympathy so those things are really important to be to work in Midea.
Thank you for that everyone it's really interesting to hear kind of um what students can do to help themselves stand out during the recruitment process and I think Wei it's really interesting to hear um from our perspective and I'm sure students will really value that insight into um how they can promote their studies in the UK and how they can promote that International experience because it is a very different experience you know going overseas for University it's something that I did as well and it does change you I think it gives you a different outlook and perspective on life and it's really important for students who have studied abroad to be able to um package that and promote that experience and that change and kind of the skills that they develop for having an international experience an international mind-set so um students please take note of that, that's very important. Is there anything um that you can think of that um students who are educated outside of China and kind of need to um work on a little bit more or might struggle with in terms of when they re-enter the workforce in China? Are there any things that they'll need to put some extra effort into um whether it be kind of um that um kind of reverse culture shock that we talk about where when you come back from an overseas experience you need to kind of get back into and the swing of things is there anything that our students will need to be mindful of when they're when they're planning on working in China after their studies?
For me I think um because they study abroad like away from their hometown for already three years or more right so I think they have already built up their great skills on their strong accessibility, flexibility, and also international exposure so I don't think there's a very big easy for them to like back to their hometown um like it's more close to their family to the house right so um but I would say like um because everyone has their own potential and has their own strengths so everybody's unique I think so um don't be like to panic like back to hometown or go to China or somewhere in Asia to work because I think I believe every um company will have a very um diverse and inclusive work environment to let you get used to it and adapt to it with different trainings and supports from your bodies and from the mentors as well.
Thank you for that.
I can share um I was kind of doing a bit of career coaching with a Chinese fresh graduate like many of you and yeah I think she mentioned um doing group interviews can be a bit challenging in China. Again I think it's um it's also as you said reverse cultural shock um so you probably need to adapt a little bit um but yeah definitely I would say practise debating skills or presentation skills but I think more and more companies are when it comes to fresh graduates interns especially again interns like sometimes there are these group interviews and in China it's pretty normal to um interrupt each other when you talk or you know you have a point of view you just go and present it whereas for examples in my experience in Europe in the UK there's also a different way to present ideas or having a panel like we're doing right now, so there is that bit of roughness, I don't know how to call it um, and I think some people might need some time to get used to it, yeah so I would say yeah practice a little bit of debating / presenting skills especially preparing an idea, presented clearly / quickly, three key ideas, how you wrap it up, because that's I understand it's part of the internship selection process nowadays in in big companies.
That's great thank you Gianluca for your insight. Wei did you have something to add as well?
Uh yeah so um the same reverse culture shock uh I am so after I went to the US and come back I feel like I had quite a smooth transition because I have joined in Midea after my first year in the US, so I went back to China and did the internship there and then went back to the US, so it's like it's a smooth transformation, but I have talked to my friend like who has been living in the US for several years she's really used to the culture, how people react in the US, so she feels kind of um reluctant or uncomfortable sometimes when she came back to China and things like that so you might be a little shy in the first like reverse culture shock and you might feel like it's not really comfortable to start some conversation things like that as for instance like in the group interview things like that but yeah we just need to practice more that is the key. Another I could say like a little bit disadvantage is that we started our network in overseas countries, right, which means we abandon some networks in China, so when you go back China you need to start the network again, so it takes some time to build your network web back there, so uh but it's not gonna be a really big problem in Midea because every year the campus hiring is actually a big portion of our new hirings, so if you join in our company as a new hiring you will have a lot of friends who are in your same age, maybe some of them have the same background as you, so it's easier for you to build connections with them first. But overall I think it's cool; I think we have a really tolerant culture for different for people from different backgrounds, like we could share ideas strictly to each other. So as long as we are you know communicating without concerns to express feelings directly so we can know what we want from each other and what is our goal - so where we want to go finally - I think it's not be going to be a really very big problem.
Thank you. I think, you know, some of the things that I've taken away from this conversation so far is that anyone who is um looking to return to China after their studies just needs to you know make sure that they are their truest authentic self and throughout the process be aware that there may well be some reverse culture shock. I think you know even on a on a very much smaller scale is you get that even if you go to university in the same country but in a very different city it's difficult to kind of return to where you've come from with a different perspective sometimes, so um just for any students who are kind of thinking about that to be mindful of that process, but know that you do adapt quite quickly. I think um just remember, you know, when you came to the UK what that was like and how, you know, after a certain amount of time you adapt really quickly so um that's the same and everywhere you go you do just pick up different perspectives and different skills, and that can all be used to kind of um work towards your advantage, and they help shape who you are, so um don't try to get rid of that, just be mindful of that.
I'm conscious of time and I want to make sure that we've got enough time for questions, and so I just thought we would um just quickly kind of finish the panel session on if you had one top tip for any students who are currently studying at Birmingham, Nottingham and Warwick universities and when thinking about their experience in the UK - whether they're first-year students, or Masters students that are here for a relatively short amount of time, whether they are ready to start applying or not - what would your top tip be? It can be anything from how to make the most of their time in the UK, or something you know really specific about a top tip for the application process, and if everyone could just go through and just name their one top tip that would be great.
Yep so I would just recall the conversations we had today and from me I was really suggesting everyone just be yourself during any kind of stage, any kind of moment, yes so this will be the top tips for the students.
I would say kind of simple, but apply - try to apply um sometimes you may get rejection, but it's always especially try to do as many job interviews as possible, that's a very good exercise for you. Sometimes the rejection today might be an opportunity tomorrow or two years. It also happened to me in my experience. And it's part of your networking, so I know it could be a bit frustrating because you apply, it's all online, you don't get any emails or feedback sometimes, but I do think when you are... when you do your first internship or first entry job sometimes you know it can be helpful. Also talk to people - like personal networking - that's also another. I think with smaller companies it can also be an effective way to say like "hey I'm here I'm very interested in this industry in this role um is there any opportunity?" That kind of approach can be... but yeah for large companies I would say you still need to fill the applications and uh you know you do 100 sometimes you get 5 or 10 interviews that's also part of the process - could be a good exercise for you.
My suggestion is that try to use uh use the time, really precious time, to start and live overseas to explore more, and I think like a lot of Chinese students are comfortable staying in their comfortable zone - to be hanging out with Chinese speaking students - but I would encourage them to know people from different backgrounds more; to start a conversation, to know their culture, and to learn how to communicate with people from different backgrounds, because that's the most important experience they could learn overseas, and this is something especially for an HR person, you know, where we need to be communicating with people with different backgrounds, and to understand what's their concerns, so it's really important for them. And yeah another thing I agree with - sorry I cannot pronounce your name –
Gianluca.
Okay - Gianluca - yeah I totally agree, it's painful like you applied a lot of times but it got a lot of rejection, but it will be really helpful if you have an internship experience overseas and with that kind of background when you come back to China you would know how it's like to work in a different country, different culture, what's the company how people react so it's really important experience.
That's great, thank you all so much - this has been so lovely and it's been really nice to hear from you in terms of some real insight into the recruitment and selection process; what it's like applying for, and kind of onboarding, in jobs in China, and what our students can do to really make the most of their time in the UK, and make the most of their experience for a successful outcome.
I'm just wondering, just to speak to the students now - if you do have any questions, there's a question and answer section. Feel free to type any questions that you have into that section and we can get them answered, or into the chat as well, and we have about 10 minutes for questions if anyone would like to ask anything - it can be either a general question for all of our panellists or it can be something a bit more specific if there's one panellist in particular that you wanted to ask a question to.
While we're waiting for some questions to come in, I just have another question and Koni I know that you touched on this in some of your answers, but in terms of the skills that you look for in the recruitment process, whether it be for fresh graduates or during internships, I know that you were saying, you know, adaptability, and being your true authentic self, but what other skills do you all look for in applicants?
Okay so other than those points I think um you better have like a very good presentation skill and influencing skills as well. Why is that - like in a really corporate society when you work on different assignments or projects globally then probably you need to present to a senior later, but they may have just a short time to 'get' what you want, or what resources you need, or what you need to present, so we use the time wisely to just catch the key points, and with all the supporting figures, 'why' you need that. So I think this is one of the presentation skills, um as well as like influencing things like when you um like grow up in the group to work on some projects and you need to um know what the result needs to drive, and how you make sure you can engage with some different functions, different people, to drive these results - I think we need to also listen and influence, that's what you think / be a creative thinker - be both, like to share what you want and influence others. Yes so I think these are some kind of the other skill sets that we will also be looking at.
Thank you. Wei or Gianluca do you have any other kind of skill sets that come to mind?
I think in China if you're interested in marketing, technology, data is important. So the ability to do a bit of data analysis, or how you visualise, um again it could be social media um could be something more complex. I know more graduates are studying Python for example, and these kind of languages are very useful to, you know, again it's part of presentation skills, but having that kind of a little bit... like data type of mindset uh I think that's more and more valuable in tech companies, because even in different job functions, even in HR, now there are you know systems um more online tools, so having that sort of data mindset can be quite useful I would say, an extra skill very useful for you.
Thank you. Wei, did you have anything to add on that as well?
So actually for graduates the most important thing for us is initiative, as I have mentioned before. And the key to learn fast and grow fast is initiative -um being proactive to reach to others to... so you could have more resources. There's a tendency, like people are getting, so for the networking work, people are more are really proactive in the virtual world but they are reluctant to talk to people uh face to face or outside, so if we want you, you really want to make a breakthrough and we really need people to have initiative and to speak out your needs, and what do you want, and what you want to learn, so we could have the opportunity to give you that.
Thank you. We've had a few questions come through in the chat so I'll just read those out. So Abby has asked, 'what is the proportion of summer interns who have a return offer?' So for your summer internships how many... what proportion of those students would you then hire on for a graduate role?
Oh I think I'll hand that question to Tina, uh uh so I might be speaking Mandarin.
So now maybe uh 30% now, we need to have about 50% this year.
So between 30% and 50% interns will have an offer to return as kind of graduate hires. Lovely. If anyone else has kind of any numbers feel free to share as well but, if not I can move on to the next question?
Okay, Gianluca, you've got a question here - Brian has asked why did you decide on China as the place to start and develop your career after your studies?
I've always been passionate about foreign languages. I did study a little bit of Chinese and Japanese at university so I think that was quite early in my personal history, and I think it was also kind of lucky that at that time China started developing really fast again like 11 years ago, and so, you know, it was just a great way to match something that you're passionate about, your passion points, but also career opportunities. So I really came with the idea of doing an internship, a first job, maybe two years, and now I'm married with kids. So, you know, sometimes... I would say, you know, try to focus what you feel passionate about, but you know in life you also need to be practical sometimes - how you can build a career, and I think China in the last 10 years gave me this kind of opportunity you know.
I have another kind of general question for everyone - so this one is from Dan Young who has said, 'how do you overcome frustration in a failed interview, and people always say that you have to keep going, and that it will eventually work, but is this actually true?'
So I think everybody must have experience in this kind of situation, so from my point of view it's that every time when you face a failure, from no matter if it's interview or any kind of experience, I think we can treat it as a learning process - so for example like for some in Avery Dennison, in the final Assessment Centre, we talk about like practical case study as a copyright so you can gain some ideas and insights from the leaders right. So I think in throughout different kind of the interviews so no matter whether Avery Dennison or with other companies, I think you can get some take away from each of the interviews to make yourself, the skills, that's more stronger and strengthens yourself to move on to the next one.
I think that's a really good point, you know, from a personal perspective for myself I like to think whilst it's frustrating to go through the application process in an interview, and then not be successful, every interview you do, you learn more skills and every interview you do, you kind of hone in on your examples a little bit more, and you learn how to articulate yourself a little bit more, and so that when the right opportunity does present itself, and it matches with your skill set and your personality and everything else, you're able to present yourself in a really successful way.
Yeah I would say, you know, definitely learning opportunity but take interviews also as a networking in a way it's also part of networking. The job market is not that huge even in China, uh the companies that are constantly hiring are not thousands - so a failed interview could... First there is feedback: you can get an idea of my... I should, you know, change my skill set, you know, refocus my career - you can always get good feedback, but yeah it's... in my case again um I actually was originally rejected by Alibaba - again a personal example - and then the same opportunity came back two years later and I was much more prepared for the interview process, and I was hired, and it was the same hiring manager, he remembered me. So it's not - especially if you're in a specific niche area - it's not, you know, thousands of companies even in China. So yeah I would say from personal experience really taking it as a learning process, and you kind of absorb, you start to understand what companies are looking for. Yeah, I decided to study Chinese and going deeper in Chinese languages also because I saw that it's a very valuable... it's a master of skill in China, um doing interviews, so it's definitely... it can really shape your career progression in some cases.
Thank you. I've also got one question here, I appreciate that we're just coming up to the end of time, so I'll just ask this final question which is coming from Theresa at Nottingham who has said, 'what's the approach to providing feedback to graduate applicants in China, in terms of whether that be after the application stage, or after an interview, what kind of feedback is given?' Or it may be a case of whether feedback is only given, you know, after you get to a certain stage for instance on an interview, or at an assessment centre, or does every applicant get given feedback?
Actually I think each company has like different recruitment processes, but I believe like always like a feedback to everyone is a good experience for them to learn and develop, right? So in each of the steps, in each of the stages, we definitely would get back to the candidates yeah.
And sorry just to follow up, is it appropriate / would it be culturally appropriate for an applicant to request feedback after an interview, um if they're unsuccessful?
Yeah I think for us it's like... because everything's open so we can like feedback to them, "oh uh I'm sorry for this time you may be... oh we may not proceed in the next stage", but we can also have some follow-up actions like maybe sometimes they want to know what's the points that may not be successful at this time, so I think it's also a good experience for them to get some feedback and then to learn and then go to the next.
It's totally okay to ask for feedback. Actually, for frankly speaking, for like graduate recruitment, we have a large mass amount of applicants so it's hard to give feedback one-on-one but if students are interested to know what's their feedback, it's totally okay to ask for that.
Great, thank you. Well I am just conscious that we have run over time a little bit so I just I think it's probably best if we wrap up here, but I just wanted to say a massive thank you to our panelists Koni, Gianluca, Tina and Wei, thank you so much, it was really really nice speaking with you and I'm sure our students found it particularly interesting to kind of hear your insight and learn a little bit more about the recruitment and selection process. So we really appreciate your time and all of your insight and we look forward to speaking to you again.
Yeah thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for everyone - very nice panel.
Any students who have interest in Midea and haven't joined in our WeChat group I could show you the screen again so you could join us. Another thing we didn't have prepared is like if you have submitted your application before March 13th you would have the opportunity to be in a competition to get a Manchester football ticket. So yeah and if anyone is interested we are currently in the process of you know recruiting.
Yeah and I've shared my LinkedIn contact in the chat, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn - it's my name and family name, so yeah Gianluca Fricasso you can find me on LinkedIn. Thank you guys.
Thank you all so much - it's been really nice speaking to you all and I hope you have a lovely evening ahead.
Bye.
Thank you.