The current employment landscape in China is really tough. The economic downturn has brought about numerous challenges. The market now features a supply surplus. There is not only an oversupply of returned overseas graduates, but also a surplus of fresh domestic graduates, and even laid-off job seekers.

Lately, I have frequently met returnees from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Manchester and the University of Bristol who struggle to land jobs back in China. They apply to dozens of companies yet only get a handful of interviews, and very few end up receiving job offers.

The core issue is that although China is rolling out economic stimulus measures, the overall market remains sluggish. In many cases, unemployment is not caused by personal incompetence but by market conditions. This is exactly the time when resilience matters most. Those who can seize seemingly insignificant opportunities will stand out.

In fact, international returnees still hold many competitive advantages. The core logic of securing employment back in China lies in whether you can replace other graduates and grab the position ahead of others. Although UK master’s graduates are often dismissively referred to as holding 'water master’s degrees', their qualifications still enjoy solid recognition overall.

The problem now is that most returnees only target big corporations, the internet sector and securities firms. These fields are dominated by postgraduates from China’s C9 universities and the world’s top 30 overseas institutions. Only after this group of candidates takes their share of opportunities will openings become available to others. There is room for upward competition, yet it remains limited. Many students now face a new choice: whether to struggle fiercely within this tight pool of resources, or take a lower-tier role first to polish their skills and pursue better opportunities step by step.

Having worked in overseas education for years and supported more than a dozen cohorts of graduates, I have gained insights into the employment outcomes of roughly 2,000 returning students each year. My observation shows that those who achieve great success, possess sound awareness and maintain clear self-positioning are not always the top academic performers. Many of them found their way in a certain field through hands-on work, gradually accumulating connections and resources at different levels. Some went on to launch their own businesses, while others became senior executives or partners.

Winning the short-term race does not equal true success. When we extend the timeline to the next five or ten years, the core lies in whether you can create greater value. Studying abroad is indeed a ticket: it grants you access to peer networks and serves as a reference for securing job opportunities. But whether you can achieve greater accomplishments and move further in your career ultimately depends on your capabilities. You must keep learning on the job, solve practical problems, and continuously become a better version of yourself.

Many returning international students fall into a mindset trap. They constantly try to compete with people who are more accomplished and aim to outperform them. This is actually a flawed way of thinking. You do not need to be better than everyone else. The core logic for your future career is to compete in lower-tier markets and go deeper into grassroots markets.

When running projects, you manage people who are less capable than you. Even in cases of predatory profiteering, gains are extracted from those at a lower level. There is a scene in The Wolf of Wall Street about who to sell junk stocks to. Do they sell them to wealthy people? No. They target people of limited means, who tend to have less financial awareness and greater greed. Such people are more willing to buy junk stocks, dreaming of getting rich quickly. That is the group they are targeting.

Essentially, international students outperform ordinary graduates in both knowledge accumulation and cognitive capacity. The core of your future career development lies in figuring out how to design products or projects for lower-tier markets and capture value there. By gaining resources and influence through value capture in these markets, you can gradually pave the way to higher career levels.

In fact, outstanding high-achieving returnees are playing by this rule: they target lower-tier markets. Leveraging their advantages, they launch combined strategies in grassroots markets to secure more capital and bargaining power. Industries such as finance, education and training, knowledge payment, new-concept marketing and brand building all operate on this logic.

There is really no need to compete against people more capable than yourself. When moving upward, all competitors are strong players; few are truly less competent than you. But if you look downward, you will discover blue-ocean markets where people have huge gaps compared with you. They lack the information you easily have — a massive information gap. They have not experienced the pitfalls you have encountered — a huge cognitive gap. They have never run the projects you have completed — a huge execution gap.

Once you successfully launch and operate one project, you are basically ready to go solo. The essence of being an international student is exposure to more experiences, whether setbacks or otherwise, which enables you to rapidly upgrade your cognition. Then you only need to pick a promising track, and polish your professional capabilities to outperform most ordinary competitors. That is sufficient. At this stage, you gain the ability to grasp market opportunities. Once you possess such capability, you get access to the level of resource allocation. When you reach that tier, what else would you lack?

To sum up: many students fixate on the wrong things and dwell on trivial details. Examples include whether their major boasts good employment prospects, whether their university can land them a decent job, or whether their programme has more exams or essays. Do these really matter? Graduating is enough. Even if you fail to graduate, so what? Studying is ultimately about building the core competencies required for employment. If you master the ability to start and scale a business early on, your degree becomes far less important. You can always pursue further qualifications later.

If you fail to get into the core circle, you will still be excluded no matter whether your major or university is slightly better. This is the case for securities firms and investment banks. You either have sufficient resources or an elite university background. If you have neither, there is little chance. You need to accumulate experience and capital at the grassroots level first. After completing your initial accumulation, you will get the opportunity to collaborate with them and design targeted projects for lower-tier markets as you move upward.

This issue is packed with solid insights. Those who can understand it will gain enlightenment, while others may find it confusing. To be frank, top-performing returnees who have achieved great results all understand this set of rules. They always pick a promising track, get their core business running smoothly, capture value in lower-tier markets, and then build connections with higher-level players. Do not compete against people smarter than you. Instead, aim to become like them or build friendships with them.