How to prepare for an interview in China

Depending on the company you apply for, interviews in China do not differ much from interviews in other countries. How the interview is conducted mainly depends on the company and hiring culture. However, there have been a few questions that I have never been asked before when I was still interviewing in Europe. I want to give you and overview of those and some insights why a Chinese would ask those questions in an interview setting. Keep in mind that the context for this article is interviewing with a US company that has a branch in China.

General interview structure

I can say that I went through some interviews in my life already. The most recent ones usually consisted of three parts. One is the cultural fit assessment where you are asked how you would handle certain situations. Also, the interviewer tries to learn about your mindset and working style.

Another part is the technical assessment. In this part the interviewer wants to learn how well you know about the hard skills. Again, depending on the company this can be more of a casual chat, where you talk about experiences and how and why you made certain decisions. However, it can also be a brutal, stressful and time-limited technical challenge. The technical assessment could also include another interview where you dive into systems design.

Finally, one stage in the interview process is a chat with HR, the people department or your hiring manager. Here you will be asked about salary expectations, mindset and cultural fit.

All of the stages mentioned above could consist of one or multiple interviews. For certain positions, you will be interviewed by more than one person and sometimes you will have multiple interviews for the same interview stage.