Microsoft says it is hard to recruit coders in China

Well this is scary.  Microsoft threatening to deliver lectures at Chinese
universities to "tell what kind of talents they want and how the students
should improve".  

Pull-quote: "What we need most are engineers with abilities to transfer the
demands of consumers into the functions of our products, not single-minded
program writers," said Zhang.

This is hypocritical and self-serving, and is exactly what will stifle
innovation (which is MS's whole argument against Free Open Source Software).

Just my shi kuai.

/src

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Microsoft says it is hard to recruit 100 software engineers in China

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 31, 2004
People's Daily Online

Microsoft has found it difficult to satisfy its goal of recruiting 100
software engineers in China, sources with the Microsoft Research Asia
Advanced Technology Center (ATC) said.

To satisfy the demand of its ongoing ten programs, the ATC hoped that it
could recruit about 100 software managers, architects and testers before
this July. It has received more than 120,000 resumes, mainly from college
students, after it released the advertisements through the media. 

After strict selections, the ATC only found 70 people who met the post's
requirements, said Shang Xiaoli, public relations manager of ATC. She said
that because there were too many candidates, only about 3,000 got the chance
to take part in the preliminary exam, followed by a series of professional
interviews. 

The outcome of the selection shows that most candidates are good at coding,
but only a few of them have the abilities to transfer research innovations
into products or incubate new innovative products, which are indispensable
skills of software managers or architects, said Dr. Zhang Hongjiang,
president of the ATC. 

"It is hard to find a qualified manager from those candidates. By now, all
software managers in ATC are ones who once worked for Microsoft or from
other Microsoft departments," said Zhang. 

He said the outcome, which has seriously delayed the ongoing research
programs, shows that there are some erroneous ideas on the software industry
in students' minds. 

"What we need most are engineers with abilities to transfer the demands of
consumers into the functions of our products, not single-minded program
writers," said Zhang. 

Zhang and his colleagues have planned to give lectures at more than ten
universities, aiming to tell what kind of talents they want and how the
students should improve. 

As one of the most well-known transnational companies, Microsoft attracts
thousands of college graduates every year, who go after several hundred
posts in its Chinese departments. The ATC, founded in Beijing in November
2003, is a new division of Microsoft Research Asia that will focus on
further development of innovations produced in the labs. 

Ends.

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