Meng-hui Chen

Meng-hui Chen is the former general manager of Eastern China for Unisys in Shanghai, where she led an organization of over 60 systems integration and application solutions professionals.From her experience, if the person is over 35 years old and has been working in a Chinese enterprise for eight or more years, then she is reluctant to hire them."They tend to be more political and power oriented," says Meng-hui.

Meng-hui Chen is the former general manager of Eastern China for Unisys in Shanghai, where she led an organization of over 60 systems integration and application solutions professionals.From her experience, if the person is over 35 years old and has been working in a Chinese enterprise for eight or more years, then she is reluctant to hire them."They tend to be more political and power oriented," says Meng-hui."For many of them, they see a pie that is limited, and they are unwilling to give up their share.Their outlook is, if I don't eat you alive, then I'll get eaten alive."

Meng-hui makes exceptions for persons under 35, who have worked in the international department of an SOE or participated in joint venture projects with international parties.She believes that, at still a relatively early stage in their career and with some international business exposure, they still have the ability to adapt to an international company culture and manner of doing business.She is also open to hiring personnel from Chinese enterprises if she is looking for someone with lots of specific domain or industry knowledge.For instance, several of her sales managers had years of experience with mainland companies before joining her team.
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Rather than seek staff from Chinese companies, however, Meng-hui prefers to go "fresh," and recruit and train younger mainland staff.Like most multinational managers and human resources professionals, she looks beyond grades alone.In her experience, students who were more active with outside activities at their university are often better hires."I don't always look for the best students.They don't necessarily make the best employees," says Meng-hui."Instead, I like the ones in the top one-third or upper-middle of their universities.
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Finally, Meng-Hui Chen likes to hire good students from second tier universities.