How universities can beat Chinese institutions at preparing graduates for the modern economy

Thousands of students come to Australia from China to complete university studies, but do we really know why? Many assume Chinese students go abroad to study with the aim of emigrating, and some of them probably do. But the real driver behind that aim, and also the reason why our education system is more effective than Chinese higher education at preparing graduates to succeed in the modern economy, demands greater scrutiny.

In his upcoming book, The End of Cheap China, Shaun Rein looks at how Chinese higher education is out of line with the needs of its own economy. As the Chinese population ages, and shifts from wanting to make iPhones to buying them, the country can no longer rely on manufacturing. However the education system is not preparing young people for a more service oriented economy. The Chinese curriculum still focuses on rote memorisation and test scores, which do not adequately train Chinese on the creative and analytic ability needed to survive and innovate in a global economy.

By contrast, Australian universities do prepare graduates to be agile in a modern, changing, service-based economy – and should be actively marketing themselves to Chinese markets on these strengths.

Beware of including distracting achievements in your resume

A candidate recently asked me for advice on his resume for a General Manager role. It contained a section listing general interests and achievements, including a year spent researching in Antarctica. I advised him to drop it as being not only irrelevant to his application, but potentially a way to get him ruled out of contention.

A resume has one purpose for the job applicant: to help secure an interview. On the hiring side, they are used to exclude candidates from progressing further. The hiring manager, or selection committee, are extremely risk-averse when reading your resume, and if anything in it looks risky, your resume could easily work against your application.

Including irrelevant achievements distracts from the evidence of meeting a role’s selection criteria. 

The Antarctica experience could make this applicant seem a bit odd (a loner? Show off?) and not a fit for General Manager. 

The candidate is proud of his work in Antarctica and it could make him memorable to the interview panel. I suggested he refers to it in interview but stay focused on providing evidence of his skills, experience and aptitude for this role. For example, if asked how he deals with conflict, he could respond, “Spending a year with a research team in Antarctica means that I had to work out how to settle differences with and between colleagues. But I’ll give you a more recent example….”

While we are all proud of our extracurricular achievements, think hard about what they could signal about you when your resume is being evaluated for a job. You could end up reminding people of the hyperbolic video resume “Impossible is Nothing” that turned into an Internet meme.