Drawing from job advertisements, interviews with in-house recruiters and participant observations, Ren offers an in-depth exploration of how elite professional service firms recruit graduates in China.
This book opens the ‘black box’ of graduate hiring processes from a demand-side perspective, offering a rare look at Chinese recruiters’ perception of talent, evaluative practices and decision-making. It showcases the hiring activities that Chinese employers deploy to capture a homogeneous group of new hires based on cost-effective and rationalized criteria, thereby reinforcing local management and perpetuating the existing socio-cultural order within elite firms. Grounded in rich empirical data, the text provides a comprehensive examination of the dynamics behind elite hiring and the local operation of elite professional service firms in transitional China.
An invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in Sociology, China Studies, Business, and Human Resources Management, as well as professionals navigating the unique complexities of hiring and talent management in professional service sectors in China.
Drawing from job advertisements, interviews with in-house recruiters and participant observations, Ren offers an in-depth exploration of how elite professional service firms recruit graduates in China.
List of Tables
Preface
1. Introduction: Locating Elite Hiring in Transitional China
2. The Surface of Elite Jobs Versus the youxiu Professional Worker
3. The Messages on the Campus
4. Educational Success
5. High-Quality Internships
6. The Interview Chemistry
7. The Gender Dimension
8. Trawling Talent in Transitional China: Conclusion and Discussion
Methodological Appendix
References
Index
Ran Ren is a sociologist at the Chengdu University of Technology, China. He obtained a DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford and has published in leading journals, such as The British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, The China Quarterly, and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. He has an interdisciplinary interest in topics of elites, finance, and meaningful work and learning.
