Internship In Shanghai For Foreigners - In this post, I will cover literally everything you need to know about getting an internship in China. I will do my best to make specific recommendations, share as much detail as possible, and suspend my own personal bias.
Note: I updated this in January 2018, some of the sections below were not completed.
Internship In Shanghai For Foreigners
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In the next 6,000 words (that's a big one!) I'll answer some of the most common questions I get, including:
How is the internet in China? How much will be censored? What tools (VPN) can I use to bypass the Great Firewall?
And much much more. This post has become the longest I've published on the web, so I hope you find it valuable and can use it to better guide your decision to intern in China?
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To make this massive post easier to digest, you should check out our table of contents (coming soon) below so you can jump to a specific section if you want.
First, we'll start with an overview of internships and what they are and can't be for.
Once upon a time, not too long ago, internships were a luxury that only a minority of university students and recent graduates participated in. You can do an internship during the summer or spend the summer working at the sandwich shop in your college town. However, the expectation was that after graduation, it would be relatively easy for you to get a job.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, that started to change about 10 years ago. When the Great Financial Crisis hit in 2008, jobs became scarcer and competition fiercer. For many employers, an internship on a potential employee's resume goes from being a "nice to have" to a "need to have." In fact, it was worse. Many recent graduates worked for years in internships, some of which were reasonably well paid, many of which were unpaid. But hey, anything to gain that experience, right?
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Although the effects of the global recession are not felt as acutely today as they were 8 years ago when I graduated from college, the fact is that the global economy has entered a sort of new normal in which most of employers consider it a job. experience essential even for their entry-level positions.
Now, that doesn't mean an internship is the only way to get experience that will look great to an employer. In fact, for a certain type of person, it might not even be the best way. There are several ways to get this experience:
You can create your own company. Even if it turns out to be an abject failure, the reality of TODAY is that technology allows us to start businesses with little initial capital. If you started your own company during college, failed or succeeded, and are now looking for a job, send me your resume at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . You are EXACTLY the type of person I am looking for.
You can spend the summer creating an amazing portfolio. If you want to be a developer, you should have a repository on Github. If you want to get a job as a designer, you should have a portfolio to show potential employers.
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You can work remotely for a mentor for free. Stop for a minute and think about the person in the world whose work you most admire. Would you be willing to spend a summer working for them for free in exchange for teaching them and gaining invaluable insight into how they operate? The answer to that has to be yes. It's true that tutoring/remote work isn't the easiest thing to work with (although it's becoming more and more popular), and this might not be the best option for you. Which brings me to my next option…
You can do internships. This is a viable option, and for most people in the world, this is probably the best option.
The reality is that internships remain the biggest opportunity for young, inexperienced students and recent graduates to gain experience and ultimately secure a better-paying job in the workforce after graduation- yes This is why I should repeat, an internship is an investment and should not be analyzed based on how much money it will make you TODAY. Because the reality is that you probably won't make a lot of money and when you include accommodation, travel, etc. that will be used to do these practices, you will be lucky to reach the balance.
Yes, of course there are exceptions and if you are a private equity trainee But for most people, an internship is an investment in their future that will hopefully lead them to a better job after graduation.
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Employers prefer employees with some experience because it reduces the risk for them. No employer can determine with 100% certainty whether an employee will succeed at their company, but a candidate with past experience is considered less risky than one without. Internships are also a great way for employers to get to know an employee before hiring them full-time. It's a kind of trial period where the company evaluates you and you also evaluate the company, and if the fit is the right one and the company in which the intern plans to hire in the future, guess who will he look for first? YOU HAVE IT!
For many people, an internship that turns into a full-time job is the ideal they are looking for. But you know what can be even better than good practice? A bad practice! Let me explain…
At the risk of sounding self-indulgent, I will share my story here. For a few years in college, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I love the written word, I enjoy a decent argument, and as a natural person I wanted the prestige associated with a career as a lawyer. So, encouraged by my parents, I started practicing law in Washington DC and eventually I was able to get a paid internship at a prestigious law firm on K-Street. Well guess what?
I hated it! I spent an entire summer making photocopies and looking at the folders on the handle. I was tired out of my mind!
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But during this time, I had the opportunity to talk with many associates who work in the company. At least 2 of them told me they wished they had done the internship before going to law school and that if they had, they never would have gone to law school in the first place. Instead, they were each over 100k in debt and basically forced to work in law until they could finally pay off that debt.
I think back to this moment and I am seriously grateful that I was able to realize that I hated the law before I became a lawyer. If I hadn't had this experience, I can easily imagine myself in a parallel universe, doing a job I don't like just to pay off my student debt.
That's enough from me. Think about yourself and your aspirations. Are you sure you really want to pursue a career? Well, the best thing you can do for yourself is to be completely honest about why you want to get into a particular field and work to test your assumptions about why it will be so great for you. The best way to do this is through an internship.
People come to China for internships for various reasons. I will explain some of these reasons here.
Shanghai: The Prelude
If you are adventurous and like to step out of your comfort zone, you might be the type of person who would like to intern in China. The reality is that there are many places in the world that are easier to travel to than China. English has not yet been widely adopted, especially outside of the major tier 1 cities, and the last century in China has been as tumultuous as it has been, with the Cultural Revolution, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the fast and largely unregulated. transition to the country. the second largest economy in the world. China is dynamic, and because of its closed history it still maintains a sense of exoticism that many countries no longer have in this age of global communication.
It also helps that China has world-class tourist and dining spots,
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