PPG Career Lectures Provide Guidance for Chinese College Students

PPG Industries recently hosted a series of career lectures at 11 top universities across China, discussing issues related to future careers and offering tips for job hunting to college students.

Building on years of cooperation with universities for PPG’s China Scholarship Program, PPG launched the Career Lecture series this year to provide guidance for Chinese college students. The lectures were comprised of two sessions — Professional Experience Sharing and Job-Seeking Skills Instruction. In the first session, female PPG executives shared personal experiences with students, addressing concerns about an inferior recruitment environment for female engineering students and encouraging students to build confidence to face the challenges of job hunting. The second session, organized by PPG’s partner Career Intelligence, included workshops on job-seeking skills. Career Intelligence’s career-management programs offer university students in China instruction on creating resumes and skills for job interviews, enabling students to better prepare themselves for job-seeking efforts.

“Students in their senior year at university need to prepare for the transition to a work environment,” said Cathy Yan, PPG general manager, corporate and government affairs, Asia Pacific. “We hope our tailored training program will help with their career development. We also hope it will help attract excellent students to career opportunities with PPG.”

Supporting education is an important part of PPG’s social responsibility efforts. In addition to programs for university students in the Asia Pacific region, PPG has launched programs for elementary and middle school students. PPG has hosted a scholarship program for China’s 10 leading universities for 11 years to support the development of chemistry-related disciplines and enable outstanding students to realize their potential. PPG also set up an “Eco Classroom” for local elementary and middle school students, where they show and explain to students how a chemical company operates and share PPG’s environmental-protection efforts.

To support its employee diversity, PPG set up the Women’s Leadership Council at its Pittsburgh headquarters in 2001 and established its Asian council in 2006. The council works to create more opportunities for women to engage in PPG’s development. Since 2006, the Asian unit has made efforts to strengthen women’s communications with senior management and help them leverage their advantages. The Professional Experience Sharing session of PPG’s Career Lecture series for Chinese students is an example both of how the Women’s Leadership Council encourages female PPG executives and how the company engages with the local community.