Q&A: IBM China Blue Pathway Application

Program Introduction:
IBM China's Blue Pathway Program (http://www.bluepathway.net/) is a program geared toward 2010 graduates to place them in real business and industry environment and prepare them for corporate and community leadership. This is a campus recruiting program in support of IBM China's goal to attract, recruit, & retain top university talents.

As a major part of annual Campus Recruitment Program, Blue Pathway Internship Program will provide interns with job opportunities, mentoring, training and professional/technical development. Students will also receive competitive experience such as IBM's recognition after successful completion of our Blue Pathway Internship Program. For students who maintain an excellent academic record and a positive work performance with IBM, we will seek to convert them to full time hires after their graduation along with campus recruitment program. If we have enough high-performance interns to offer, we will not conduct campus recruitment at year-end.

What's new?
This year, we open Blue Pathway positions to overseas Chinese students who would like to come back to work in China after graduation. It was not long ago when people almost always moved from developing to mature markets to find better work opportunities. As the world becomes flatter and leading corporations like IBM move towards a globally integrated model, we witnessed increased interest from international students to return to their home countries for employment opportunities. China, with its increasingly important role in the world economy, has become more attractive to overseas talents who want to make an impact early in their careers and seek long-term developmental opportunities. IBM Blue Pathway Internship Program will be a great gateway to realize your goals.

Application Process:
The application and selection process is the same for overseas candidates. Please go to http://www.bluepathway.net/ to apply. You will receive an email notifying you of your next stage of application. IBM Aptitude Test and first round interview can be conducted virtually when you are still abroad. Most likely, you will have on-line test in a proctored setting at the career services of your school during May 25th – 27th. First round interview will be arranged by our overseas recruiters based on the results of the test. But you must physically participate the final round interview and additional tests (for R&D positions) in China, following the local timeline of process.

Q&A:
As the overseas focal point for IBM China recruitment team, I would like to answer any questions regarding the program and application procedures. Feel free to comment or ask questions through this post!

Smarter Planet University Jam

Beginning April 21st, IBM will convene a 72-hour global online conversation (called a “Jam”) with faculty, students, IBM business leaders and technologists, and industry partners from across the globe on how technology and business can help build a Smarter Planet in areas such as:
* Smart Cities
* Smart Carbon & Water Management
* Smart Grid
* Smarter Healthcare
* Skills & Education

Participants in the IBM Smarter Planet University Jam to be held April 21-24 over a 72-hour period -- including Earth Day will:
* Interact with other faculty and students from across the globe who are committed to this
Smarter Planet challenge
* Learn about new opportunities and best practices
* Share ideas about the skills needed to best prepare the Smarter Planet technologists of
tomorrow
* Hear from select IBMers and other business and technology leaders, as well as peers and
independent authorities


If your school has been selected to participate in the Jam, please go to our website to get more informationa and register: http://www.ibm.com/university/smartplanet_jam.

Due to the limited space, we can not invite every school to join. But don't be frustrated if your school is not on the participating list. You are always welcome to share your thoughts about building a smarter planet with IBMers through various social media platforms, say, my blog:)
You may also want to keep abreast of the initiative by visiting the blog: http://asmarterplanet.com/

Do you know what cloud computing is?

"Do you know what cloud computing is?" My mom tried to "show off" some new concept she learnt recently.

"Well, it sounds familiar to me." I answered as I knew IBM first introduced this concept to the commercial world.

"You know what, under this concept, the whole world may only need 5 computers in the future. Everyone can have easy access to the highly efficient IT services no matter where they are or what type of device they're using!........" Mom was very excited to tell the story of "cloud computing". "Ha, I saw your (IBM) ad for smarter planet on websites here in China. I was attracted to the blurb and just clicked the link to find out more details. You should be really proud of what your company is doing!"

My mom is right. As a recruiter, I am so proud of my employer in terms of its strategic vision to always get ahead of the game and firm resolution in always improve or even reinvent itself. I know we still have a lot of bureaucracy, negative feedback on some of our innovative practices, and I myself have some frustration in my daily work, but still, IBMers are optimistic about the future of the company, even given the current serious crisis. I can always be very proud to tell others that I am working for a company which turns people's dreams into reality.

An incoming call for my mom stopped our on-line conversation. And I overheard my mom was encouraging her subordinate who was frustrated with a tough business case, "don't be pessimistic about the temporary obstacles! Just believe in what you are working on is the future trend! Duplication model (related to her business) will enter dead-end. You know what is the most efficient?....Cloud computing!...." Ha, I have to worship my mom's spirit in constant learning and ability to apply what she's learnt immediately.

Young Guests from China

On Monday, Feb 9th, IBM hosted a site visit here at Somer NY for about 85 students from top China universities . As part of a short-term study program called "Columbia - China Young Development", the fieldtrip at famous global company like IBM was valuable for these Chinese students who wants to develop leadership and global mindset. It was also a perfect example to demonstrate IBM's globally integrated recruiting efforts.

It's the first time for IBM US to host a visit for such a large group of foreign students. As a Chinese with US education backgroud, I am passionate to help build this platform for more young talents from China to gain exposure to executives of a leading company and learn its business and strategy at a global level. At the same time, the students had opportunities to talk to international assignees-in from China to learn their first-hand global experience, and gain cross-cultural experience by interacting with US employees. On the other hand, we also want to deliver the message to the Chineses students that IBM is highly committed to the business expansion and talent pool building in China.


I took the lead in planning this event and it was a fun and great learning experience for me.
I myself accumulated great experience through the planning work, such as engaging and communicating with executives, preparing presentation and speeches, developing and utilizing network to support recruiting work, leading a team and managing workflows.


The event turned out to be very successful. Both the students and IBM employees enjoyed the event so much. We expect to make it regular and expand to other student organizations in the future.

IBM's Role in Shaping the Future World

In this volitile evironment, a lot of the enterprises, especially the large ones, might prefer to be more conservative and adopted a wait-and-see attitude for next step. We cannot say IBM is totally immune from this external evironment, but what IBM has strived for years prepares itself well for future growth and remain sound and competitive in current economic volatility. Let's see the new theme of IBM's development this year -- "Smarter Planet". You can find numerous concrete examples under this concept it can impact almost every aspect of our daily life: food quality and safety, traffic reduction, energy saving, healthcare efficiency, workforce productivity, enterprise efficiency, new generation of IT infrastructure. To put it simple, IBM is help improving a lot of things in the world that we take for granted in a revolutionary way. It's amazing when you watch the videos about "smarter planet" case stories and have the pictures in your mind about the cool life in the near future.

IBM's business direction turns out to be highly in line with the priorities of the new president of the US. From the speech of IBM CEO Sam Palmisano when invited to the White House, we can see the connection between building a smarter infrastructure and smarter planet with the opportunity to help the nation out of the current economic crisis.

Always Be Prepared

A very nice HR partner in our site initiated a weekly lunch for a group of HR new hires/interns to talk with experienced HR professionals to learn more about the company and their career experience. This informal luncheon has become a well received networking/learning event for new IBMers in HR. The group is developed by word of mouth and our topics are no longer limited to career building but cover re-organization of HR function, adjustments of business/HR strategy in this turbulent environment and tricky problems everybody encountered in work. As we new hires become more familiar with our work environment, everyone starts contributing to the event by engaging our manager or second-line managers to join our lunch to build the network further. This way, we are able to broaden our horizon of this large company and get inspiration about personal development plan such as our next desired role/rotation within the company.

The current economic crisis has been a hot topic during recent lunches. As employees, how can we increase our job security and market value in such a daunting and uncertain environment? Learning ability and open mindset can be a “rule of thumb” in for surviving the current hard time and preparing for tomorrow’s competition and challenge in career. Learning here is not limited to formal courses or events. All kinds of project experience, even beyond your work scope can be good learning resources as well. One major secret of this young HR director’s success is “always asking for more work to do”. “I am a not a workaholic” is my first response. But on second thought, this may not be necessarily in conflict with a good work-life balance. When you try to tap new areas, you’ve started broaden your skill-set and network which might help you work more efficiently, while demonstrating your initiative and time management skills. Therefore, managers will see that you always have the desire, ability and readiness to progress in a career ladder. When you build up the reputation that you are always willing and able to help, more opportunities and people will come to you naturally. By making your skill-set broad, unique and transferable, you can always get new opportunities while leave legacy in your current role.

While encourage its employees to enhance and update skills, IBM HR has formed a new workforce management strategy to manage its workforce in a more effective and efficient way. Many companies have mastered the concepts and tools to conduct competitive analysis in their product/service market. Now, how can we win the war for talent without knowing our inventories/assets of human resources? With a stronger workforce research capabilities, that is, the information of skills and experience of current employees as well as future needs can be collected, managed, updated and analyzed more scientifically, the company will definitely be more confident in exceeding in talent acquisition and deployment. As an IBMer, we can have a better idea of potential career opportunities and always be prepared to plan in advance to develop the key skills.