20 Percent of Chinese University Graduates do want to become Public Servants, don’t they?

Chinese universities will surrender about 7 million graduates to the working world in 2010, and even more in 2011. But where will they all go? More than 1.5 million of them were unable to find themselves permanent employment last year, a number that is expected to grow even further. In a recent post, we already sketched opportunities arising from loans being granted for entrepreneurial graduates to set up their own enterprises. If this does not apply, what else can a university graduate do to prevent unemployment?

Why not become a public servant, is what many graduates ask themselves about this time every year. But, before getting excited about this opportunity, the following two figures are worth a closer look: 15,566 and 1.4 million. While the latter describes the number of graduates who applied for a vacant position as a public servant in 2009, the former indicates the number of vacancies in this sector which, despite having grown by nearly 15% year-over-year, still says that there are about 90 candidates competing for one single government-sponsored desk. Besides escaping from the imminent danger of unemployment, graduates name the following motivations for applying for one of these rare vacancies: the craving for a direct contribution to the nation’s progress; an increased social status; reception of social benefits – even as a migrant; better payment and higher social benefits; life tenure and low stress level; the chance to create an extensive social relationship network. One group of applicants believes that sitting the national civil servant examination helps toughen them up for further recruitment activities. To find out what is behind this statement, a closer look into what it takes to pass the national civil servant exam seems appropriate.

Without going into much detail about the process, it is safe to say that there are four, consecutive hurdles to be taken on the road to becoming a civil servant in China: apply for and get admission to the written exam; sit the written exam; attend a face-to-face interview and assessment; undergo a physical examination.

The written exam is grouped into two parts, an administrative career aptitude test consisting of about 140 multiple-choice questions to be answered within 120 minutes and another part comprising a set of questions to be answered by writing several short essays within 150 minutes. To prepare for the test, one can either buy a pile of books or take online prep courses. Even though it is less likely that foreigners become eligible for a position as civil servant in China any time soon, a glance at the examination is worthwhile, particularly as it might shed some light on what skills and character traits the Chinese government envisages its prospective employees to have.

Items tested through the first part of the exam revolve around language skills and comprehension, quantitative analysis capabilities, the ability to judge and deduce, data analysis skills, and common sense. For further enlightenment, here are characteristic examples taken from 2009 actual exams and 2010 prep exams:

For most citizens, professional career is very important. Only a handful of people are able to ___ operate their own businesses whereas most people have to rely on a ___ to build their career foundation for them. Choose the most appropriate from the following answer sets: (A) immediately organisation; (B) actively team; (C) independently colleague; (D) alone collective.

Examine the following sequence of numbers: 1, 6, 20, 56, 144, ___. Fill the gap by choosing the most appropriate from the following numbers: (A) 256; (B) 312; (C) 352; (D) 384.

The principle of in dubio pro reo refers to cases where doubts about an accused person’s guilt remain because of missing evidence or the costs being too high to find sufficient evidence. In these situations, a judge should rule a sentence favorable to the accused. Choose which of the following cases is in accordance with this principle: (A) The court decides that the criminal case at hand is too minor and therefore dismisses the case altogether; (B) The court found the accused guilty of several crimes, but for one crime doubts remain, and it decides to sent the case to a public security organ for further investigation; (C) Due to lack of evidence, the court acquits the accused for want of evidence; (D) If it cannot be assured whether the time allowed for a case by statute of limitations has already run out, then the criminal prosecution shall be waived.

In April 2009, the Chinese Car Industry Association published a statistics showing that domestic car sales continued to rise. Sales reached 831,000 cars in April, an increase of 7.59% compared to March 2009. Compared to April 2008, this is an increase of 37.37%. How many cars were sold in April 2009? (A) 132,000; (B) 226,000; (C) 131,000; (D) 404,000

The basic features of Chinas socialist ethnic relations are: equality, solidarity, mutual aid and ___. Fill the gap by choosing the most appropriate of the following terms: (A) cooperation; (B) prosperity; (C) harmony; (D) friendship.

With 120 minutes overall time to solve 140 questions of this caliber, candidates are required to spend no more than 50 seconds on each answer.

Tasks assigned in the second part – essay writing – are similar to the following example:

Lin, the owner of a shoe factory in Dongguan, came to Dongguan to set up factories in 2003. Before he came to Dongguan, he worked hard in Taiwan for over 20 years. He says that the current situation was terrible and that he recently lost a few hundred thousand yuan. Due to increased currency exchange risks, he was no longer able to process orders from US shopping malls and traders. According to Lin, because of the RMB appreciation, raw material and other prices had gone up, and the total cost had increased by over 20% in 2007. “I do not feel home in the Guangdong mountain area, and I don’t have much interest in the mainland either. It takes a lot of time to start again at another place.”, says Lin.

A friend suggested him to move his factories to Vietnam, but Lin responded vividly: “In Vietnam, labor shortage is serious, and tax paid there is similar to the tax paid here. Some of my friends moved there, but in the end were not much better off, so I guess they will leave in a few years.” When asked whether he considered growing out of the low-end production by increasing his research and development capabilities to launch high-end products, Lin shrugged saying with a smile: “No such capability.”

Analyse the mentality of managing director Lin according to the given materials and point out the essential problem his attitude shows.

This is immense, and it illuminates somehow why, out of 1.4 million applicants for the 15,566 vacant public servant positions, 30% did not show up to take the exam in 2009. Despite the large number of no-shows, the annual mass examination procedure needs to be carried out by someone. According to Central Party School professor Zhou Tianyong, an army of 70 million public servants had been amassed by the Chinese government to date. This figure could explain who processes 1.4 million applications and examines 1 million exams every year.

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