Recruiting in China

By Erin White

From The Wall Street Journal Online

During the dot-com boom, ambitious U.S. business-school students looked West to Silicon Valley for opportunities. Now some are looking East to Asia for full-time jobs as well as summer internships.

China, where there has been rapid economic growth in the past few years, has the most allure. But other markets, including India and Singapore, also are drawing M.B.A. job candidates.

They're attracted by the adventure of working in Asia as well as the chance to gain experience in a region that is increasingly important to U.S. companies. Knowledge of Asia, especially China, could help propel their careers, they believe. Another draw, especially for entrepreneurial types, is the chance to get in on the ground floor of new businesses and potentially earn big sums or quickly move up the ranks.

A February career fair for international jobs held by seven top U.S. business schools attracted 337 applications for 48 jobs in Asia, says Bilal Ojjeh, chief executive of MBA-Exchange.com, the service that helped organize the fair, which included Harvard, Stanford and Columbia universities, the University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Last year, a similar career fair had 26 Asian job postings, and drew only 212 applications.

"There's just this tremendous interest," says Joseph Kauffman, a 27-year-old first year student at Harvard Business School who is co-president of its Asia Business Club. With 160 members, it's one of the biggest clubs there. Mr. Kauffman figures he's gotten about 20 emails from classmates he doesn't know who want to talk with him about working in Asia. Mr. Kauffman himself is headed to Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong this summer.

Risha Bond, a 26-year-old first-year student at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, has her sights on India. A native Midwesterner, she isn't ethnically Indian, is fluent only in English and has never even visited India. But this summer, she wants to land an internship doing biotech work at a big energy company there.

She could find similar work in the U.S., but she's more excited by India. "The growth in India is so hot," she says. She likes the business challenges, and thinks that ultimately, it could pay off financially. "It could be a very lucrative play," she says. "You establish yourself early and in a young industry...that's potentially big business."

The companies that are hiring U.S.-educated M.B.A.s for posts in Asia are often the same ones recruiting lots of M.B.A.s for American jobs: investment banks, consulting firms, and big multinational corporations in areas such as consumer products, technology and health care. But although many of these companies are expanding their Asian operations, these jobs aren't always easy for Americans to get.

For many Asian posts, language skills are a must, which knocks most Americans out of the running. What's more, American M.B.A.s face growing competition from Asian M.B.A.s, either ones who are educated at Asian business schools, or U.S.-educated Asians returning home. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it's gotten harder for these international students to find jobs in the U.S., so even though many would prefer to land jobs here, they often return home, says Phil Han, a career counselor at the University of California at Los Angeles's Anderson School of Management. Harvard's Mr. Kauffman encountered tough competition for his Hong Kong summer internship, despite impressive credentials. He grew up in rural Pennsylvania, but is a fluent Mandarin speaker after studying it in college and working at Coca-Cola Co. in China for four and a half years after graduation.

Many of his English-only classmates wouldn't have passed an early-round interview: a half-hour phone conversation conducted entirely in Mandarin with two employees in Hong Kong. In further interviews, he had to push hard to demonstrate his serious interest in Asia. "Competition was extremely stiff," he says.

Lower salaries deter some American students. It's not a big issue with investment banks and top consulting firms, which generally pay M.B.A.s comparable or just somewhat lower salaries for Asian posts. "There is a differential but it's not a show-stopper," says Christopher Morris, director of M.B.A. career management at Wharton.

But for other jobs, the pay difference can be significant. A consumer-products or pharmaceutical company, for instance, might pay roughly half the U.S. salary of $85,000 to $95,000 to a "local hire," says Mr. Morris. Students can negotiate to get closer to the U.S. salary, but their pre-M.B.A. experience makes a big difference. That's why many M.B.A.s hope to work in the U.S. for a few years, pay off their loans, and get some experience in Asia later on in a cushier expat assignment.

Still, despite the hurdles, the numbers of Asia-bound students are growing at some campuses. At Wharton, Mr. Morris estimates that at least 7.5% of second-year students will take jobs in Asia on graduation, up from 6.3% last year. At Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, it looks like at least 20 first-year students will take internships in Asia, about double the number from last year, estimates Richard McNulty, director of the career development office at Tuck.

Kevin Widlansky, a 30-year-old Detroit native, took a job with McKinsey & Co. in Singapore after graduating from Wharton in December. He found salaries in the region to be somewhat less than similar jobs in the U.S. But with the lower cost of living and lower taxes, "I would say we're at least even," if not saving more in Singapore, he says. Plus, he loves the challenge of working in such a dynamic place. He already speaks fluent Mandarin and has started studying Burmese. "Excellent teak," he says of the wood the country is known for. And who knows, he jokes: In 10 to 15 years, Myanmar could be the next big thing.