Rumor has it Facebook to hire Chinese graduates

(Ecns.cn)--Though Facebook hasn't officially started any business in China, rumors persist among Chinese college students that the social-networking giant plans to recruit Chinese graduates this year, according to China Business News, Thursday.

Liu Peng, a Tsinghua postgraduate in computer science, said that his friend forwarded him Facebook recruitment information last week which said that the company expects to hire about 900 fulltime software engineers worldwide in 2012, and put them to work in California and Seattle.

Most of the employees, according to the recruitment package, will be selected from five key Chinese institutes of higher learning, including Nanjing, Tsinghua, Shanghai Jiaotong, Fudan and Zhejiang universities.

Facebook's requirements are similar to that of other IT companies: candidates need to have related graduation certificates, skills in computer languages, and other related techniques. But the assessment process is very tough as outlined; there will be two to three rounds of telephone interviews and other special tests.

But once a candidate has run the gauntlet, the pay for the new hire is very competitive – in fact ten times higher than what domestic software engineers make. Contracts for these new employees will also guarantee other benefits, the literature went on to disclose. Besides the recruitment information Liu received, there are other versions of the offer posted on the bulletin board systems of some universities.

However, when trying to contact the people who left an email address on the posts, reporter received no reply. To cast further doubt on the authenticity of the material, the five universities mentioned above say they have no official agreement with Facebook to cooperate on graduate recruitment.

"If Facebook plans to expand its overseas market, it will come to China sooner or later," said Dong Xu, an analyst with Analysys International, a leading provider of information products, services and solutions for China's Internet market.