Landed a job through experienced-hire (social) recruitment in one month.

Author: Xiaohongshu (RED) blogger “Be there or be square”

I landed a job through social recruitment in one month.

My UK master’s was extended to February. After I got my degree certificate, I quickly started job hunting. Because of the delayed graduation, I couldn’t apply for the PSW visa, so I switched to a spouse visa. That was probably one reason I could find a job relatively quickly.

I barely applied to graduate schemes. I only applied to a few, and I didn’t even pass the online tests. I’m not sure if that’s because I didn’t buy question banks or practice enough. I also feel very awkward doing video interviews (VI) and prefer video or phone call formats instead.

For experienced-hire roles, I mainly applied to Mandarin-speaking positions. I felt my spoken English might not fully match a fully English-speaking work environment, especially since most of the roles I applied for were in administration and HR.

Since I started applying, I’ve received quite a lot of phone calls and online interview invitations. Typically, if I applied on Monday, I would get 2–3 phone calls on Tuesday, and 1–2 online interviews a day. In the end, I attended three in-person interviews and received one offer.

For interview prep, I first checked interview reviews for relevant roles on Glassdoor, then watched videos on YouTube. I highly recommend a great YouTube channel called Amri Celeste — she explains things really well. I basically took all my behavioral question examples from her videos, then combined them with my own experiences and wrote my answers. I also watched some videos from a bald creator (Guangtou), but his style didn’t really suit me.

Without exception, every company asked why I chose their company. I also don’t recommend applying to Chinese companies. One Chinese company took me to the final round and then completely ghosted me with no feedback. Another company even asked me during a phone interview whether I was planning to have children in the near future.