She is a polyglot, fluent in English and Chinese as well as her mother tongue, Italian. She graduated in Chinese studies and just finished an intensive post-graduate course on Chinese business management.

Employers would be lining up to rope her in, right?

Wrong.

Susan Tami, a 29-year-old from Italy, has her own story to tell on how tough the job market is in the world's most populous country.

"Just like other Chinese, I've found that finding a decent job in big cities like Beijing has become increasingly challenging," says Tami, who used a pseudonym in the interview with China Daily.

Her job-seeking experience has taught her a lesson: The reality in China is a little different than what she learnt during her four years of Chinese studies at Venice University.

Connections help

"Your capabilities do not necessarily allow you to move up the career ladder in China," says Tami, who had taught in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, for two years. Since September, she job-hunted through networks, Internet surfing and employment agencies to get a job in Beijing, where her boyfriend lives.

Before leaving Kunming, Tami had mailed nearly 20 resumes to Beijing-based companies and during the past two months, she visited 10 companies and agencies, but to no avail, at least for the moment.

"Although I failed, I'm finally moving closer to my loved one," she says with some optimism.

Last week, she found a job as a business assistant in an Italian company based in Tangshan, about 250 kilometres away from the Chinese capital, through a close friend. Now, she can meet her boyfriend during weekends.

"Connections (guanxi) finally helped me find a job and that was not taught in my text books," says Tami, whose undergraduate years were from 1992 to 1996.

"If you don't have the pull, it is definitely a problem. That is the reason I emphasize these days that understanding China's unique culture is imperative to find a better job in big cities."

Human resources managers say foreign companies prefer to employ Chinese who have good command of foreign languages and as well as expertise in their fields.

Job scarcity

"Job scarcity poses another problem for foreigners," says Dai Xiaoling, human resources officer of Aethra Telecom's Beijing office. Tami had tried her luck in his company -- a leading European producer of telecommunication products -- but Dai says the company turned Tami down because of her lack of understanding of China's market and inexperience in the telecom field.

Li Qing, a renowned human resources expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says requirements for foreign job hunters in China are getting increasingly higher.

"No longer is it enough simply to be just a native speaker," says Li.

He says most administrative, technical, retail, food service and marketing jobs are for locals who can speak foreign languages, are well-connected locally and are willing to work for 700-4,000 yuan (US$84-482) per month, five days a week.

He points out that "China's job market has been flooded with educated and experienced Chinese returning from overseas and foreigners being attracted by China's rapid economic growth."

Two years ago, Tami decided to find a job in Kunming after obtaining a half-year training diploma on Chinese language at Yunnan Normal University.

But she found it difficult to find a job there because there was only one Italian company in Kunming. For those from Britain and the United States, it was quite easy because their countries had more joint ventures in the city. So she had to earn a living as a teacher.

"Despite the fact that I love children, I didn't regard teaching a real job because of my lack of training in the field," she says.

Tough labour market

Tami is among a large group of foreigners who are feeling the pinch of China's tough labour market.

Her American friend Tom Convard, who works as a teacher in Kunming, says he plans to quit teaching and find another job in Shanghai or Beijing.

"I'm just trying by mail and haven't visited big cities so far," says Convard. He says his savings cannot support him if he becomes jobless for a relatively long time.

"Spending one or two weeks in Beijing or Shanghai to hunt for jobs is OK, but what if my situation is the same as that of Susan's previous two months?" But in Kunming, I can live a comfortable life," says Convard who earns about 3,000 yuan (US$360) per month by teaching.

Foreign teachers usually get on-the-campus apartments, support staff, a round-trip plane tickets between their home countries and China, and teach up to 16 hours a week.

"Another benefit is that with regular teaching hours, you get a chance to brush up your Chinese in your spare time," he says.

The English-learning fever nowadays offers teaching posts for foreigners and competition is not so fierce in medium-sized cities such as Kunming.

"If you have a bachelor's degree, an open mind, and a soul thirsting for living in China, the country is a great place," says Tami. "With a modest salary, the job helps newcomers settle down."

Foreigners' concerns

Tami says visa and housing are the two great concerns for foreigners who want to live and work in China. "With a teaching job, you get both nailed down."

"However, there are two other things that I think I need to mention. One is improper assessment of job qualifications and the other is an underground labour market.

"In some regions, people wrongly think that foreigners can do everything better than Chinese," she says.

Take teaching, for example. Housewives and workers from English-speaking countries can successfully land a job as teachers here. "Without professional training, how can they deliver?" she asks. "But they are employed just because they have big noses and white faces."

In addition, some employers secretly employ foreigners without registration. "They just want to save expenses and do not care much about what kind of documents and passports foreigners have," says Tami.

(China Daily February 19, 2004)