Senior talents, those with 10+ years of relevant experience, are so hard to find in China.
Cultural Revolution
From 1966 to 1976, China suffered the famed cultural revolution. The ferocious intensity on thought control stopped the country from anything else. The society regressed, decades of hardwork wiped out, a whole generation of people forsaken.
Schools closed during the cultural revolution. Kids graduated from high school found no possibility for higher education. During the 1st few years when schools reopened, the government made exception to the rule of prescribed age for college entrance. They came in droves and became the 1st batch of college educated elites of modern China. Chinese call them LaoSanJie (è€ä¸‰å±Š, the three old classes). They are in their late-50s today.
The first uninterruptably educated batch entered college around 1980. At that time, there were only about 300 universities in the country. From 1980 to 1985, these schools produced graduates that are less than 0.1% of the population. For the country, only less than 2% of the population were college educated or better. If you found one of them today, he or she is most likely managing a big government agency already.
Around 1985, numbers of universities and students started to grow and exploded started 1995 during the 9th 5-year planning cycle. Nevertheless, it is hard to fight against time. The oldest of them would have graduated only 17 years and barely 40 years old today.
A typical silicon-valley senior engineer job description will include the requirements of “10+ years of relevant experience with an advanced degree.” To hire in China, “fluent in English” is also a requirement. You will be searching in the pool of statistical zero.
Every companies that need senior talents must solve this problem.
Solutions
The easiest solution is to force growth — making junior people do senior works. This “sink or swim” practice is highly problematic. People crash and company suffers from inexperienced leadership. But, for many, there is no alternative. They are the only ones we got.
Companies can also import talents. Taiwan and Hong Kong are two ready sources. These regions share the same history and culture. The talents are ethnically Chinese, differing only in Mandarin accents and the degree of exposure to western ways of life. They have the much needed senior leadership, market-based management style, willingness to coach and mentor, and the all important blood kinship.
China could also import talents from US or other developed countries. First target those sea turtles (in Chinese, “returnee from abroad” sounds like sea turtle). China enterprises covet sea turtles for their western education, relevant work experience, and the ease of integration culturally and linguistically. They understood how things are really done here, and also knew how could thing done differently.
The last choice is use westerners. They face three main barriers for their success: language, culture, and trust. Although many westerners have mastered Chinese, most stopped after few working phrases. Chinese culture is conservative, family-centric, conformative, hierarchical, and contextual (it is really how it was said), hugely different for those new-age, silicon-valley “can do” cowboys. Lastly, the near colonization (think Hong Kong and Macau) about 100 years ago left deep wounds that are not fully healed yet.
MNC's Advantage
MNCs, like Sun Microsystems, have an enviable option of partnering with their US establishments. They can get senior leadership easier and less expensive. They are in good position to leverage China's youthful energy and capture the market with speed.
This is the “offshore to grow” recipe.
Recruit young talents, abundant in China. Choose carefully for those with open minds and relatively fluent English. Find a leader in charge of talent cultivation and organization growth. Forge partnership between the energetically young and the experienced wise with the right incentives and organization structure. Leverage the agility to capture the market. Win for China employees, win for US employees, win for the company.