The pressures of coming home

Finding a job back in China is not easy either. Returnees like Xu Nan and Zhang Xia believed that China would have more economic opportunities that might be helpful for their career development or to start their own business. But they didn’t expect the job market to be so tight.

The cumulative number of returnees has reached 800,000 in the last five years, almost 3 times the numbers of 30 years ago. In 2012, 272,900 people came back to China, a 46 percent increase, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Xu Nan says that a large number of returnees are people with a similar background and similar competitiveness to his own. They are all seeking jobs, and thousands people are applying for every position that is advertised. Unless you have graduated from an Ivy League university, it is difficult to distinguish yourself from the competition.

Yu Na graduated from Seoul University, specializing in news and media. Since returning to China she has failed in many interviews, for all sorts of reasons. Some have said they don’t offer jobs to returned students, some think a Korean qualification is of less value than a western degree, and some have simply told her that she was not suitable as a candidate.

Miss Wu, who graduated from one of the world’s top 20 universities, has also experienced embarrassment during interviews. She says some domestic employers don’t know her university, and some think that students go abroad to study because they failed the Chinese university entrance examination. “The value of our degrees is depreciated by the fact that the quality of returnees is unreliable.”

Put the dream on hold

Whether you are a local or a returnee, first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou remain the most popular places to start a career. The difference is that returnees have to start afresh and adapt to a domestic life with which they are no longer familiar. Domestic graduates have remained integrated in local life and the Chinese environment, which reduces the returnee’s advantages in the jobs market.

They have dreamt of careers in well-known international companies, have held expectations of a high salary, or have hoped to start their own business, but now they face pressures at home that they did not anticipate. They have to put their dreams on hold while they first adapt to the need to survive.