Philips was overwhelmed by the amount of young Chinese professionals and graduates who want to come to Drachten to develop new product innovations in Philips’ new Advanced Technology Center. The project started with an initial meeting in Drachten. The head of Philips in the North of the Netherlands, our contact person and the student group were present. Subsequent to the first meeting, we - Iris, Celine, Linda, and Iskren - were designing Flyer and Poster for the recruitment day that we were supposed to hold at Nankai University in Tianjin, China. More preparation like booking the room, a recruitment Training in Eindhoven, informing our Chinese buddies about project, preparing a presentation, and getting approval for flyer needed to be done before we left off to China.

In Tianjin we started immediately with preparing our Recruitment Day. Our buddies helped us with the printing and distributing promotional material, printing forms, arranging cameras and checking equipment of the room in which we held the Recruitment Day on 31st October 2008.

More than 500 students came to the Philips Recruitment Day at Nankai University. Subsequently to our presentation about the company, career opportunities, Europe, the Netherlands, and Drachten, the applicants could sign up for an interview in the following week. The interviews took place in a hotel on campus. Two more students, Marielle and Petra, helped us with conducting the interviews since there was such a run. Many qualified young people came to us and told how much they would love to start their career at Philips. Also the English skills were to some extend better than expected. The students brought their CV, during and after every interview we filled in an assessment form, and we even filmed the applicants so that Philips can get an impression of them.

Back in the Netherlands we evaluated the interviews and recommended the 25 best applicants. We handed over our recommendations and are now writing a report. Soon we will meet our client in order to end our involvement in the recruitment process. For all group members this project was a very interesting experience, not only because we got to know recruitment strategies, but also because we interviewed many people from one culture. Interviewing Chinese people gave us a good insight in how they think and behave.