To satisfy the demand of its ongoing ten programs, the ATC hoped that it could recruit about 100 software managers, architects and testers before this July. It has received more than120,000 resumes, mainly from college students, after it released the advertisements through the media.

After strict selections, the ATC only found 70 people who met the post's requirements, said Shang Xiaoli, public relations manager of ATC. She said that because there were too many candidates, only about 3,000 got the chance to take part in the preliminary exam, followed by a series of professional interviews.

The outcome of the selection shows that most candidates are good at coding, but only a few of them have the abilities to transfer research innovations into products or incubate new innovative products, which are indispensable skills of software managers or architects, said Dr. Zhang Hongjiang, president of theATC.

"It is hard to find a qualified manager from those candidates. By now, all software managers in ATC are ones who once worked for Microsoft or from other Microsoft departments," said Zhang.

He said the outcome, which has seriously delayed the ongoing research programs, shows that there are some erroneous ideas on the software industry in students' minds.

"What we need most are engineers with abilities to transfer the demands of consumers into the functions of our products, not single-minded program writers," said Zhang.

Zhang and his colleagues have planned to give lectures at more than ten universities, aiming to tell what kind of talents they want and how the students should improve.

As one of the most well-known transnational companies, Microsoft attracts thousands of college graduates every year, who go after several hundred posts in its Chinese departments. The ATC, founded in Beijing in November 2003, is a new division of Microsoft Research Asia that will focus on further development of innovations produced in the labs.

(People's Daily March 31, 2004)