On November 15, the ZIBS Career Development Center was officially launched by Gregory Guyett, member of the ZIBS International Advisory Board and CEO of HSBC Global Banking and Capital Markets, along with BEN Shenglin, Dean of ZIBS. Desiree Xu, former China Head of Digital Channels Global and Commercial Banking at HSBC and current career development mentor in the Greater Bay Area, also attended the event. The center is dedicated to providing students with career planning guidance, professional training, and employment services.
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Prior to the inauguration, Desiree Xu shared her insights on career planning with ZIBS students. She highlighted three key trends: technology, changes in population and social structure, and the country's 14th Five-Year Plan. She emphasized the importance of aligning personal career planning with these trends and enhancing professional skills accordingly.
In an interactive session with the students, Desiree Xu used a rope-cutting exercise to illustrate that life's weight is defined by experiences, and its strength is shaped by our ability to absorb and connect these experiences. She encouraged students to enhance their self-regulation, thinking, communication, and execution abilities in today's competitive environment. According to her, these soft skills will be key differentiators in various fields. Following the talk, she engaged in a Q&A session with the students.
ZIBS has appointed Desiree Xu as a career development Mentor.
Testimonials
Jomiene Johanna Wilhelmien Galstaun (MCS 2022)
Last week, Desiree Xu gave an interactive presentation about career choices. Her enthusiastic energy and inspiring career path let me reflect on my own career choices. One of her messages is: Just try; all experiences will benefit you. Another one is: You will learn most when the situation is difficult. I keep these 2 points in mind now that I am applying for jobs, and it makes me more relaxed as all choices are good choices and hardship is okay for you. Desiree also focused on the importance of soft skills, finding your strong skills, and which roles fit best with such skills. This self-reflection helps me understand which roles will fit me best. I am more than happy I met her! Thank you, Desiree!
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YU Hanbing（iMF 2023）
Desiree Xu has a very strong personality, and her sharing is highly interactive. Through her sharing, we quickly have a general framework on how to choose a career path. At the same time, she introduced her diversified and multi-field career experience to us and told us that there are unlimited career choices with her personal experience, which gave us great encouragement and confidence. And she mentioned the importance of soft skills in the workplace. What impressed me most was: Don't be the best; be the only. This gives me a clear direction on how to improve myself more comprehensively, how to equip myself with irreplaceable personal abilities, and how to choose a career according to my own characteristics.
(Translated from Chinese)
LI Jiawei（iMF 2021）
Desiree Xu's career planning lecture opened a new perspective for my career development. She not only pointed out the significance of career planning in combination with personal interests, strengths, and future digital trends, but also highlighted the importance of developing soft skills in the workplace.
First, her focus is on the combination of personal interests and strengths, as well as sensitivity to future digital trends. This concept makes me realize that career planning is not just a simple choice of industry but a comprehensive consideration of personal interests and talents, combined with the future trend of social development, to make myself more forward-looking and adaptable.
Second, she emphasized that we need to improve our soft skills, including our mindset, communication, interpersonal, and executive abilities. By developing a good way of thinking, improving communication and interpersonal skills, and demonstrating superior executive power, we can learn and perform better in the workplace and gain a competitive edge.
Desiree Xu's views made me deeply understand the importance of comprehensive quality and soft skills in career planning. This comprehensive development concept makes me more actively invest in learning and cultivating my comprehensive qualities so as to better meet the challenges in the workplace. I look forward to putting these ideas into action to achieve my career goals.
At the same time, I would like to thank ZIBS for providing such a platform, allowing us to participate in the sharing of outstanding mentors. This is a rare learning opportunity, and I hope that ZIBS can continue to invite experienced and insightful professionals like Desiree Xu to provide students with more depth and breadth of career planning guidance.
(Translated from Chinese)
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