In the past few years China has witnessed the rapid development of information technology (IT) for business use. In Beijing for example the industry is increasing in size at an annual rate of 30 percent, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on May 29. The lively development of the industry has had a knock on effect on related enterprises and a growing demand for qualified personnel with a range of skills. And e-commerce now has a firm foothold in universities and colleges.

According to Tan Haoqiang, a well known Chinese computer expert, the most popular training projects in today's IT market include software and network engineering and software testing. 

Changes in the skills required by network engineers have led to focus being placed on their abilities to meet new challenges, said Tan. "The emergence of the network makes network-related companies extraordinarily prosperous and it requires highly qualified staff to continuously develop technologies to adapt to new market conditions and challenges," he added.

In addition to software and network engineers, those capable of testing software are in great demand. This is because testing procedures have been particularly strengthened within software outsourcing services.

"What we are short of are qualified personnel in this field and not orders," said Zheng Weiqi, deputy general manager of the Axis (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. "For those who are qualified to undertake testing work, we treat them as full staff members immediately after they're employed by the company."

Zheng complained that his company was disturbed by its failure in finding qualified personnel in software testing and his opinion is shared by the head of a talent search company in Beijing who said, "We collect all the résumés of experienced software testing personnel."

Sun Quntian, executive marketing director of the OPETCh Corp., said domestic software enterprises have paid closer attention to testing procedures in recent years. There were too few talented and experienced testing technicians so this particular market has significant potential, he said.

"The software testing industry has a huge demand for human resources and job-hunters should have a better understanding of the industry, participate in professional training, improve their knowledge and raise their professional competency levels to meet the demand," Sun said.

Statistics from both official and individual institutions show the growth rate of the IT training industry has been rising steadily and there's no sign of it falling away, Sun said.

E-commerce is warmly welcomed by enterprises because it's highly efficient, relatively low cost, and there are no real limitations on how and when it's used. Qualified personnel are therefore in great demand, he observed. The popularity of e-commerce courses are sweeping across university and college campuses.

The China Electronics Commerce Association held two national e-commerce competitions for university and college students respectively in April-September 2004 and April-September 2005 and a third one is in preparation, an official from the organizing group told the Beijing Youth Daily.

The first competition attracted nearly 10,000 students, creating 6.81 million yuan (US$848,800) volume of trade. The second attracted 22,600 students from 448 universities and colleges in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

Prize winners in the competitions win the Certificate of Network Manager and some have been employed by well known enterprises, according to the competition organizers. The operational mode provides a direct means of personnel selection for enterprises and creates employment opportunities for university and college students. 

(China.org.cn by Li Jingrong June 3, 2006)