African students in China: “Learn Chinese well and get more job opportunities”

The data shows that in recent years, hundreds of thousands of African students have learned Chinese culture, expanded their international horizons and gained more career opportunities through learning Chinese. Among them, the “Chinese + TVET” program helps African countries cultivate excellent skilled personnel and makes the vocational dreams of more and more African youths into reality.

From a student studying in China to a product engineer working in Chinese company

Sidi, who is from Mali and speaks fluent Chinese, has studied in China for many years, majoring in electronic science and technology. Now, he works as a product engineer at Huawei Technologies in Mali.

When asked how he got the position, Sidi replied, “Huawei is well known in Mali, and I put a copy of my resume at the company in Bamako, and eventually got the job with the expertise and language skills I had learned in China.”

The first six months of employment was the internship period. In Sidi’s view, the six-month internship was a rare experience that not only taught him a lot of professional knowledge, but also built a solid foundation for his future career development.

According to Sidi’s Chinese business director, graduates who had studied in China mainly expanded their business as frontline staff, helping the company sell its products and services, so “language skills are important”. In addition to language skills, the Chinese director also expressed that recruiting local employees who had studied technical majors in China and known Chinese was also a requirement for companies to grow overseas.

Sidi said that Chinese was number one in his work. He told me that the combination of his Chinese language skills and technical knowledge helped him pinpoint local market needs and product managers overcome technical difficulties by listening to customers, thus helping the company to identify and expand business opportunities.

At the beginning of the new year, Sidi was promoted from Intermediate Account Manager to Product Engineer. Product line positions require good communication skills and the capability for quick solutions, although “the work has become more challenging”, but we can feel Sidi’s confidence and expectations for future career development.

Chinese communication skills being employment priority

Chinese companies going into Africa need local talents who master Chinese in terms of language communication and external coordination and liaison, and this is exactly the job opportunity for local students who have studied in China.

Nan Geli (Chinese name) is a Zambian girl who studied Chinese and biomedical engineering at Beijing University of Technology and now works as an interpreter and translator in the Zambian branch of Shanxi Construction Investment Group Co., Ltd. This company constructed the China Aid Levy Mwanawasa Hospital project in Zambia from 2017 to 2020, and Nan Geli has volunteered for the project and undertook some of the interpretation and translation work. Her excellent performance was appreciated by her supervisor and she was recommended to work in the branch of Shanxi Construction Investment Group Co., Ltd. in Zambia.

“Learning Chinese well has earned me this job opportunity and I enjoy my current job. It is even more gratifying to be able to continue using Chinese in my job after graduation and to be able to use the professional skills I learned in China.” Nan Geli said.

Like Nan Geli, Lan Duo (Chinese name), a young man from Angola, studied in China. After graduation, with his excellent Chinese language skills and professional skills, he became an employee of the Luanda refinery expansion project built by China National Chemical Engineering Third Construction Co., Ltd, responsible for external coordination.

“I hope to have my graduate study back in China sometime in the future so that I can have better development opportunities in the company.” Lan Duo said.

Double advantages to start a career

Jonathan, who is from Zambia, received his master’s degree in software engineering from the Beijing University of Technology in the summer of 2022. With his professional skills in mobile application development and Chinese language ability, he found a job in his profession after returning to China.

Jonathan is currently working for an African e-commerce platform company as a technical customer-supporting specialist. The company is headquartered in Kenya and has expanded its business to Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and other countries.

Having studied and lived in China for some time, Jonathan had a positive experience with convenient and fast online shopping and courier services, which became an advantage for him to join the company and carry out his work.

“The pandemic has made Africa realize the importance of developing e-commerce. At the company I work for, I can use my expertise to promote the online shopping experience I have had in China to solve problems in software technology and help facilitate the ‘last mile’ logistics service for retail stores, which is why our business so popular locally.” Jonathan says, “Programming is challenging, but it continues to improve my professional skills, as is what I care. It was the ability to speak Chinese and the career skills I learned in China that started my career.”

original source: http://www.chinese.cn/page/#/pcpage/article?id=1353&page=1

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