1 Introduction

The employment situation of Chinese students after studying in the U.S. is one of the hot issues of concern in today's society. Researchers have found that with the increasing awareness of sovereignty in the world and the changing relationship between China and the U.S., the employment situation at home and abroad is changing and has changed dramatically for international students, and the high investment and risk of studying in the U.S. is becoming a concern as the devaluation of "returnees" is becoming more common than at the beginning of the reform and opening up. The purpose of this paper is to study the high cost and risk of studying in the U.S., collect the employment data of Chinese students in the U.S. in recent years, compare the employment situation of international students at home and abroad by using swot analysis and make a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the employment situation of Chinese students returning to China and staying in the U.S [1]. Most of the existing papers just presented the strengths and weaknesses of economic trends and employment in China. But this paper not only introduced the strengths and weaknesses of international students returning to China for employment, this paper also introduced the opportunities and threats of international students returning to China for employment. This makes our paper more careful to introduce the advantages and disadvantages of international students returning to work in China to our readers. The main purpose of our paper is to give international students studying in the United States a better understanding of recent employment trends in China and to be able to seek employment at the right time. return to China for employment, our paper can be a good help.

2 SWOT Analysis on Employment Prospects of Chinese Overseas Students in USA

2.1 Analysis on Internal Environment on Employment Prospects of Chinese Overseas Students in USA

Strength: Overseas students have hard-core advantage in employment. HR care about what university the applicants graduate and in what majors they are. The fact that they are enrolled by famous universities implies that they possess good ability of learning and professional quality, which has surpassed many of their opponents in interviews [2]. For those students, whose university ranks high and whose major is suitable, will win more opportunities than any other their contemporaries, with a wider range of making choice [3].

Strength: Overseas students have intangible advantages in employment. When seeking for employment, the applicants’ comprehensive abilities and some workplace skills etc. is advantageous, such as the ability to learn, to communicate and to handle emergent situation etc.

Weakness: generally unacceptable of the workplace culture. Overseas students lead a life and study in overseas university; they adapt to the life pace and manners of living there. However, the life in China and working pace is not as open and liberal as in oversea. The procedures are complicated and miscellaneous, which an Email can’t fix; instead, you should do them in person, abiding by the procedure regulations.

Weakness: unfamiliar with the employment demand of enterprises in China, weak in connection resources. Not long after their coming back from abroad, some students are surely rebuild their own social circle in China [4]. Connections need to be accumulated from scratch again. They are not suitable for those jobs which rely on connections and relationships.

Weakness: Some of the learning contents are not suitable for circumstance in China. Undergraduate students learning laws abroad need to take different judicial examinations again when returning to China. Because the legal system is completely different [5]. Besides, students learning accounting in Australia need to learn accounting mechanism in China again, if they plan to go to an ordinary enterprise in China. Because the accounting system in Australia is very close to that in Britain, but different with that in China in some degree [6].

Weakness: Some of the overseas students are weak in their internship experience. Due to different education manner both home and abroad, many overseas master program is no more than two years. To safeguard a high GPA score and to do other projects and overseas internship, they don’t have time to apply to do suitable domestic jobs; compared with other domestic graduates with internship experience, they have demerits in competition obviously.

2.2 Analysis on External Environment on Employment Prospects of Chinese Overseas Students in USA

Opportunity: China promulgates preferential policies for international students' employment. In recent years, China has issued various preferential policies for international students to encourage them to return to China for employment and entrepreneurship, and on August 26, 2022, the opening of HICOOL2022 Global Entrepreneur Summit and the signing of the cooperation framework agreement between the Ministry of Education and Beijing Municipality to build a model zone for returning talents to China mentioned that China has established the principle of "supporting students to study abroad, encouraging them to return to China, freedom to come and go, and play a role". In the framework agreement signed between the Ministry of Education and Beijing Municipality, it is mentioned that China has established the policy of "supporting study abroad, encouraging return to China, freedom to come and go, and playing a role" [6]. Beijing attaches great importance to the work of returning overseas students to China and has attracted a large number of high-level overseas students to work and start their business in Beijing by means of talent attraction, platform attraction, joint talent attraction and market attraction. One of the preferential policies is settling in Beijing, such as their children can attend public schools and purchase guaranteed housing. And state-owned enterprises need international students to support international business, and many import and export business. They also give foreign students a two-year employment guarantee. Because of the epidemic, many companies are laying off employees and reducing salaries, but on the contrary, state-owned enterprises are expanding their recruitment [7]. Because international students have the advantage of language, they are very advantageous for international business. And many people think that state-owned enterprises are equal to "iron rice bowls", and they do not have those elimination systems and do not fire employees at will. In 2021, the number of returnees submitting their resumes to SOEs increased by 3.7% year-on-year. In the survey, 30% of international students expect to work in state-owned enterprises, and 59% of international students think there is "public examination fever" among the returnee group, among which 38.3% think "public examination fever" has increased significantly in the past two years.

Opportunities: Domestic support for international students to settle in China. The Q&A related to the special support initiative for talents to help resume work and production issued by Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security in 2022 says that the relevant authorities will refer to the Times Higher Education, U.S. News & World Report, QS World University Rankings (QS World University Rankings), and the World University Rankings (QS World University Rankings) [8]. Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, and Shanghai Ranking's Academic Ranking of World Universities. The list is based on the list in the settlement reporting system. For those who graduated from the top 50 universities in the world, the requirement of social insurance premium payment base and payment time will be abolished, and they can apply for settlement directly after coming to work in the city full-time; for those who graduated from the world ranking 51-100, they can apply for settlement after coming to work in the city full-time and paying social insurance premium for 6 months.

In such a background, according to the information, the number of international students returning to China to seek jobs has increased, almost by 33.9% in both 2021 and 2020. 44.5% of the international students are concentrated in the first-tier cities new first-tier cities account for 34.4% [9]. The first-tier cities give a lot of preferential policies to international students, such as Beijing: if international students meet certain requirements, they can apply for Beijing household registration.

Threat: International students can't catch the recruitment time in time. Domestic spring recruitment is in March and April, and large spring recruitment is in September and October, many state-owned enterprises, famous enterprises and Internet companies refer to this time to recruit people [10]. Alibaba, for example, has very strict requirements for fresh graduates. Two-year graduates must submit in the fall and spring of their second year to be considered in the fresher batch. Like universities in the U.S., this is the most time-intensive study period, which is the opposite of what happens in China. If you are busy with your studies or if your graduation time does not correspond to your job application time, you may lose out on these big companies.

Threats: "the largest wave of returnees in history" has significantly increased the pressure of job hunting. According to the research data for returnees in 2021, more than 80% of the returnees think that it is more difficult to find a job in China than before, and the first reason is "more returnees to China and more competition". Since the first batch of scholars went to the U.S. for further study in 1978, international students and returnees have been synonymous with "elite" for a long time, so they can become hot talents in any field [11]. However, as the number of returnees has increased, the number of returnees exceeded 700,000 in 2017 alone, and the original advantage has been affected by the increase of talent base, and the competitive pressure has increased sharply.

Threat: the rise of domestic universities and the strengthening of the competitiveness of local talents. Domestic universities once lagged behind the top universities in the world because of their late start and weak basic science. However, thanks to the implementation of the strategy of developing the country through science and education and the gradual attention of the country to the cultivation of talents, many domestic colleges and universities are now gradually rising. Compared with returnees, local students from prestigious universities know more about the domestic economic development and have richer regional and network resources, which make them strong competitors for returnees. Table 1 is the SWOT matrix for the analysis of the return employment prospects of Chinese students in the United States.

Table 1. SWOT matrix for the analysis of the return employment prospects of Chinese students in the United States

3 Suggestion

The government is supposed to introduce some policies for the development of students studying abroad returning to China, so as to motivate more of them to return to China after graduation.

Policies for the settlement of students studying abroad in China: It is a general concern for students studying abroad to settle in China. Over the past few years, the government has abolished the requirements of social insurance premium payment base and payment time for those who graduated from the top 50 institutions in the world, allowing them to apply for settlement in a direct manner by taking up full-time employment in the city. As for those who graduated from the top 51-100 institutions in the world, they can apply for settlement after taking up full-time employment in the city and paying social insurance premium for 6 months.

Regarding the policy of subsidies, the government is encouraged to appropriately increase the subsidies for students studying abroad to return to China for development, such as rental housing and living subsidies, so as to induce more students to return to China for development.

Regarding the preferential policies for business start-ups, the government is encouraged to grant certain funds for business start-ups and give preferential policies in terms of taxation and loans to students studying abroad returning to China.

Regarding preferential policies for children’s education, some regions provide preferential policies for children of students studying abroad to enroll in schools after returning to China, which are normally arranged by the education department in a unified manner with schools of selection. For those who have lived abroad for more than 5 years, they are given extra points for enrollment during the language compliance period, while schools where teaching foreign languages are available in the district for students studying abroad to make their own choices.

4 Conclusion

International students' international outlook, fluency in language and communication and strong "critical thinking skills" are the most competitive attributes in the workplace, and the admission to a top US university means that students have excellent academic skills and professionalism. However, the "largest wave of returnees in history" has significantly increased the pressure to find a job; the rise of domestic universities has strengthened the competitiveness of local talent. In addition, some international students have weak internship experience. In summary, it is recommended that international students who are more articulate, more active and good at verbal communication return to China to find employment opportunities, while international students with low stress tolerance or weak internship experience are advised to focus on these two areas for self-improvement. Prepare the Certificate of Returned Overseas Student in advance and prepare for the application. Firstly, international students should adjust their mentality, secondly, they should be familiar with the employment situation and understand the domestic recruitment market. Then, be clear about their career goals. Finally, after returning to China, they should be clear about the timing of corporate recruitment and be ready to take part in online applications, written tests and interviews in a timely manner.

In conclusion, after clarifying the obstacles to studying abroad at home, international students can overcome the obstacles and make up for the deficiencies through their own efforts. To sum up, being in the age of information technology, there is a huge amount of information available to collect, and across geographical and spatial limitations, international students can get timely information even when they are abroad. What is lacking is made up for, and if disadvantages can be made up for, they can be turned into advantages. In a word, the prospects for international students to return to their home countries for employment are also very delightful.