After not so positive job market experience last year (2016) with SILC Shanghai university, China, I feel like to share the following with market candidates, especially when you apply Chinese universities in 2017.
• I received a job offer in January 2016 (signed by the Dean), after an interview on the job market. It turns out eventually that the university did not stick to their written job offer when they provide the real job contract.I don't know how legally binding the original offer is.
• The real job contract deviates in terms of salary, social security benefit from the original job offer. The job contract I received had errors that they recognized and admitted as false drafting, which the university did not amend even after I required so.
• The university failed to offer me a job and I received this information as a surprise in June. The reason is that my publication is not good enough to pass the HR screening. HR screening is not mentioned until May, and I had no idea whether I can get the job is dependent on HR screening. They reviewed my CV and we talked about my publication on the job market six months ago, and they were obviously ok with my publication then.
To sum up, when issuing the job contract, the university did not follow the job offer I received. The school did not offer me a job after I pointed out the discrepancies and proposed discussion & negotiation. They did not put much effort in discussing or negotiating terms with me, and did not offer me a job eventually because of failed HR screening.
Many Chinese universities provide good research opportunities for new graduates. If you have made up your mind to work in China, I guess the lesson I learned is that do not fully trust the job offer, make sure you enter into a legally binding job contract before you reject other alternatives.
Good luck everyone!