After completing dozens of job interviews including seven rounds with the top consultancy that later hired him, Jiayuan Li could be forgiven for not wanting to think about recruitment processes for a while.
But within two weeks of landing a role at Deloitte Strategy, Analytics and M&A Group (SAM), the Duke Kunshan University student was sharing careers advice in a talk he had organized for his peers.
For three hours on the Kunshan campus at the end of last year, Li spoke about his experiences and answered questions to help his fellow students navigate the world of job hunting.
On leaving DKU’s Academic Building where the session was held, Li took a moment to reflect on his achievements so far, the challenges he faced along the way — and the many more that lay ahead.
“Getting into Deloitte is just the first step along the journey. I have to work hard to survive,” Li said.
During his final two years at high school, Li chose to follow his passion by specializing in science.
After sitting the National College Entrance Exam, also known as the gaokao, the then 18-year-old felt the burden of choice for the first time in his life when opening the college application manual, which ran to over 200 pages.
Before the gaokao, like most students in China, Li only needed to study hard and perform well in exams. Now it was time to make a big life decision. In his mind, he could choose to either push boundaries or continue down a familiar but narrow path.
Not wanting to commit an entire four years of college to a specific major, Li set his sights on a liberal arts education.
He chose the undergraduate program at Duke Kunshan, which encourages students to explore courses across a wide range of disciplines over the first two years before deciding on a major.
Li made full use of the rich selection of courses offered by DKU to closely examine the five tracks of the biology major, including health and biophysics, before deciding on cell and molecular biology.
He had also tried some social science and humanities courses such as philosophy, public policy and creative writing.
Shooting for success
One of the first projects Li worked on at DKU was setting up a basketball club on campus. A big fan of the sport, he particularly loves the team collaboration element.
Li wanted to build a basketball club which went beyond simply being a sports team and also served as a platform to connect students, faculty, staff and residents in Kunshan.
He established three guiding principles for the club: a large membership, gender equality and a focus on building traditions.
In the early days, he asked campus staff to show basketball games on the canteen’s television to help recruit members.
To encourage participation among women, he included a 3 vs. 3 format in the club tournament with the requirement that each three-member team must have at least one female player.
Away from the basketball court, Li was hired as a student worker at the DKU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, where he launched an initiative to expose students to the experiences and practices of successful entrepreneurs.
He volunteered to set up a space on the center’s official WeChat channel for interviewing startup founders and other business visionaries.
Heading up the project, he would approach potential interviewees on LinkedIn, speak to them about their journey to success and write articles aimed at inspiring and supporting students to take similar paths.
In addition to creating value for fellow students, Li has derived great personal benefit from the interactions, deepening his understanding of business fundamentals and how successful companies operate.
“The first businessman I interviewed was Lei Hong, founder of Ma Ji Yong Beef Noodles, who had just opened his second chain restaurant,” Li recalled with a smile. “Now his company is worth 4 billion yuan in the blink of an eye. It is a vast world full of endless opportunities.”
‘Don’t stay in your comfort zone’
Mixed in with moments of success, Li also experienced setbacks.
He spent two years planning the trip of a lifetime to join China’s 36th expedition to the Antarctic on the Chinese polar icebreaker Xuelong (Snow Dragon) and see in the new year at the South Pole. However, the Covid-19 outbreak put an end to his plans.
He also had to deal with his sense of disappointment over his academic performance.
At the end of freshman year, Li noticed that quite a few of his peers were posting 4.0 GPA (grade point average) results on their WeChat accounts. Seeing so many perfect scores flash up on social media started to affect his confidence.
“My grades were OK, but after discovering so many 4.0 GPA reports, I began to doubt myself,” Li said.
“The first idea that came to my mind is why I didn’t get better grades given that I also worked hard? I thought I had done a good job before seeing so many others attain perfect GPA reports.”
Li still remembers the advice he received from professors, who all assured him that his grades were fine.
One told him, “Generally speaking, if you get straight A’s in every course, there are only two possibilities: either you are a genius at everything or you have only taken the courses that you’re already good at.
“Don’t stay in your comfort zone. You need to do things that make you feel uncomfortable.”
In junior year, Li embarked on a series of internships, which he had to squeeze into his already tight schedule.
During that year, when also managing his coursework, he completed three consulting internships with HM Healthcare Management Services, The Economist Intelligence Unit and PwC’s strategy consulting business.
The first two internships in marketing consultancy were closely related to his biology background, while the strategy consulting post at PwC required him to broaden his skillset.
During a project for a Fortune 500 medical technology company, Li reviewed cutting-edge medical papers and summarized insights from industry leaders’ interviews to help design market access strategies and business models.
He sometimes worked nonstop from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. to ensure every detail was correct, right down to fonts, punctuation marks and text alignment. In the consulting industry, the smallest of flaws can instill doubt in clients about your dedication and professionalism.
Juggling demands
Li had a tough year balancing coursework and internships. Not only did he struggle to manage his time and energy levels, he also encountered skepticism from others who questioned his ability to juggle his workload.
“Colleagues at my workplace might think that I didn’t focus enough on my job as I had to take courses on campus,” Li said.
“Peers in my class might think that I didn’t do as well as I should in group projects as I had to work on my job.
“I was confused and didn’t know if I should not do internships during school term.”
In fall 2021, campus recruitment for the Class of 2022 seemed particularly competitive across the country.
This year, the number of graduating students from undergraduate and graduate programs in China surpassed 10 million for the first time. It meant that Li had to compete with 10.76 million graduates nationwide for job opportunities.
But he was determined to enter the world of work rather than pursue further education, a route favored by many of his biology classmates.
“I tried to look for a career in research and came to realize that I don’t want to work in a lab,” said Li. “And after my internships, I decided to become a strategy consultant.”
Li went on to land a job at Deloitte SAM Group, the strategy consulting section which he said was the most competitive in terms of the selection process for applicants but carried the highest potential for individual growth.
“I took about 70 to 80 job interviews during campus recruitment, and Deloitte alone put me through seven rounds of interviews. I think I got the offer mainly because of luck,” he said.
The coveted job offer at a leading international consultancy marked a successful conclusion to Li’s four-year college experience. But Li knew this was just the beginning and he could not afford to rest on his laurels.
‘A hero can be anyone’
Li has been a Batman fan since he was 6 years old. While cheerful and easy-going at college, he described himself as too quiet during childhood to fit in properly with his peers.
To counter his loneliness, he got hooked on the comic book series about the superhero.
Batman’s alias Bruce Wayne is an ordinary, reserved man with idealistic pursuits, who relies on physical strength, intelligence and high-tech devices to accomplish his superhero missions.
He is close to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the superman, relying on self-motivation to overcome his weaknesses.
From that point on, Li often dreamed he could be like Batman, using his power to make the world a better place.
Li likes to recall a Batman quote: “A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know that the world hasn’t ended.”
The quote helps him maintain a positive mindset, not dwelling on past regrets and always embracing the future. When faced with difficulties, instead of wallowing in self-pity, he sets out to find solutions.
“If I could have one superpower,” confessed Li with a smile, “I’d like to see what people I care about really think of me. I don’t know what they would say, but I’m pretty optimistic. I can handle the truth.”
