"Many Chinese enterprises want to enhance their human resource pool with overseas personnel because their presence on staff translates into increased profits. Luckily many educated and experienced foreigners have become quite interested in Chinese enterprises," says Larry Wang, president of Wang & Li Asia Resources. His company, now 15-years in the headhunting game, specializes in recruiting bilinguals.

Foreign talent looking forward to making a difference in China.

Larry believes this interest in China means the skilled of the world are betting on the country's continued good performance as the financial crisis and its remedies unfold. He points out that while other economies sink into "stagflation" or recession, China's is still growing, albeit at a slower rate of 6 percent. He bets, "If there's any place in the world that is still offering dry land economically and interesting prospects for employment and career development perspectives, it's China."

Homecoming

The huge number of Chinese students studying abroad are one labor pool Larry and his colleagues are tapping. Whereas graduates often sought a short period of employment in their host countries, recruiters expect many will be excited by the prospects at home and want to get into the market as soon as possible. Last February they made a speaking tour targeting students of 10 top-notch MBA programs in American mega cities, such as New York and Los Angeles. The lectures highlighted prospects in various sectors of China's labor market, and the practical business of how to find a job in China.

That was the first time since the year 2000 that the company mounted such a large-scale talent search and speaking tour. They had conducted similar road-shows around 1994 in their startup phase, but the last nine years have been marked by a general fall off in activity, calling for only a couple of speaking tours in a few specific cities.

"This year we decided to pull out all the stops again, principally because the financial crisis is affecting the US employment situation. When an economy is really down, a lot of people get curious about opportunities here, especially the bilingual. So we thought it was time to go," states Larry.

Larry saw significantly more students turning up to hear what recruiters had to say this time. Noticeably, about 60 to 70 percent of participants were from the ranks of China's mainland professionals currently studying or working in the U.S. In contrast, a decade ago their participants were mainly Chinese Americans and other Asians residing in the U.S.