How to find and what you need for an internship in China.

As you already may know, an essential and final step to complete your university journey is to gain some work experience through an internship.

Doing an internship in China not only is good for your career advancement but it is also a great personal experience which will help you grow and break the cultural barriers.

A huge advantage of doing an internship in China - compared to an experience in the United States or Australia, for example - is that China is an extremely complex market but, above all, difficult to understand for Western companies: people who have a professional qualification that goes beyond "knowing Chinese" and are at the same time able to understand both realities (East and West) are rare. As a result, they are also the most sought after. But how to find an internship in China?

Doesn’t matter if you’re looking for an internship or a full-time job, networks and personal connection are very important (the so called “Guanxi”). You must talk with every Chinese you know to gain as much information and advises as possible. You should start build you relationships by joining students groups (both online and offline), talking with your professors or the career center at your university.

Another important source to find a job or an internship in China is to check your home country’s Chamber of Commerce: there you’ll find all the latest job offers.

Last but not least, you can directly contact the company you wish to work for: you should send a well-written resume (if you can write it in Chinese will be better) which must include your picture, work and education experience in chronological order.

If none of these options give you results, you can also rely on agency or school: it will make you save plenty of time and efforts.

You can keep searching for internship even though you’re not currently in China due to the pandemic: indeed, there are many companies who are willing to hire remote interns.

Let’s move on now to the bureaucratic stuff: do you need a visa for internship in China? The answer is obvious: YES! But the real question is: which kind of visa you need?

 The most popular and best visa option to do an internship in China is obtain a X visa which is for students: with this visa and with the approval of your university you can start the internship.

Other option is to obtain a S2 visa: this allow students enrolled in foreigner universities to take internship with business located in Shanghai, Guangdong (free trade zone) and Zhongguancun.

Under normal circumstances, the foreign intern will have to first apply for an S2 visa without the internship remark outside China, and then apply for the remark in-country.

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