| My original comments were meant to discuss the situation of a recent graduate and not somebody with anything more than 3-5 years of experience, obviously the situation is very different for those at the top. Further, while my experience and information relates only to the legal industry, it is also applicable to many other professional jobs (a la marketing, investment banking, etc).
As far as I know, very few of the top foreign law firms in Beijing and Shanghai offer the same salaries they offer in NYC, London, Paris, etc to new associates. As I said, in the legal industry (and again, this is applicable in most other professional industries), the young expat, for better or worse, is going to be more or less extinct in 5 years. These are the words I heard from top partners at 3 out of the 5 largest firms in the world...Here's why: 1. More and more Chinese are going abroad after completing their university studies in China, some go to the US already having studied Chinese law for 4 years. 2. In the US, more and more are passing on LLMs for a full JD or an sJD and not going back to China in the summer but getting summer clerkships in US law firms. 3. After graduation, when these Chinese go back to China, they expect high salaries for Chinese big cities, but they don't expect the $130,000 salaries they'd be getting if they were working at those top firms in the US. Therefore, to these firms, they are the total package. They have strong Chinese and English skills, they have work experience in the US (or London, or Australia), they have a good knowledge of both Chinese and foreign law, plus they probably have good connections within China. MOST OF ALL, their salary demands are typically half of what most young, expat associates (less than 3-5 years experience) are asking for. Executives (or in the legal world, partners/managing partners) are mostly going to be foreigners and they won't be paid a "local" salary, but instead be receiving something comparable to what they'd get in their home country. However, the trend I talked about before means that even for executives, while they have more time than young associates, will be more or less extinct in 25 years or so. Just look at the law firms to see how this is playing out. When these firms opened their offices, they were dominated by foreigners, many who had no understanding of China, the Chinese language, and Chinese law. Today, the picture is very different, even at the top firms, most of the lawyers are 70% or more Chinese, a figure that will only rise in the years to come. Again, I know this gets us off subject a bit, but even from looking at the large number of Chinese MBAs and talking with some friends, I know that the legal profession doesn't exist in a vacuum and that the picture I drew above is true of other professional jobs. |
Is 10,000RMB/Month a Ridiculous Offer?