Trawling Talent: How Elite Professional Service Firms Recruit University Graduates in Transitional China

Drawing from job advertisements, interviews with in-house recruiters, and participant observations, Ren offers an in-depth exploration of how elite professional service firms recruit graduates in China. This book opens the “black box” of graduate hiring processes from a demand-side perspective, offering a rare look at Chinese recruiters’ perception of talent, evaluative practices, and decision-making. It showcases the hiring activities that Chinese employers deploy to capture a homogeneous group of new hires based on cost-effective and rationalized criteria, thereby reinforcing local management and perpetuating the existing sociocultural order within elite firms. Grounded in rich empirical data, the text provides a comprehensive examination of the dynamics behind elite hiring and the local operation of elite professional service firms in transitional China. The book will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students in sociology, China studies, business, and human resources management, as well as professionals navigating the unique complexities of hiring and talent management in professional service sectors in China.