Governments in rural areas are harvesting the experience of overseas returnees to boost grassroots development.

Zhou Ti studied at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in France for more than two years for a master's degree in management.

The 27-year-old returned to China in 2010 and found a job at an investment bank in Beijing paying almost 200,000 yuan ($32,000) a year.

After working for the bank for two years, he decided to go back to his hometown in Hunan province where a county was recruiting overseas returnees for town-level positions.

Zhou signed a three-year contract with Changsha county last year and now works with Kaihui town's environmental protection office, largely dealing with policymaking and trying to reduce its vehicle emissions.

"I need to visit villages every day, see how households are following the rules, such as the ban on livestock excreting into farmland or ponds," he said. "My workmates and I also keep records of each household's waste sorting and we financially reward families that do well."

Although the work pays only 3,000 yuan a month, Zhou said he believes the job offers a good platform through which he can put his own thoughts into practice.

"The job helps me improve my ability to communicate with people," he said. "I want to keep doing the job if I can make some achievements."

Leaders of town and county authorities are enthusiastic about recruiting and retaining overseas returnees like Zhou.

Changsha county hired 10 returnees for grassroots posts last year. The recruitment attracted 112 applicants, labor official Yang Xige said.

All 10 had master's degrees or above and now have different village positions according to their majors, he said.

"We assess their performance twice a year," Yang explained. "If they contribute to economic and social development, we will introduce more overseas returnees."

Deng Ruiqi, also 27, is another recruit of the county's program. He spent four years in France and works as secretary of the Communist Youth League of China for Fulin town.

Deng's main job is to explain government policies to villagers. "Once I visited 70 households in two days. The work has helped me accumulate grassroots work experience that I couldn't have acquired from books," he said.

Deng successfully organized a gala in September, raising about 400,000 yuan from businesses and individuals to address the schooling problems of children from poor families.

Deng hopes the experience can help him get a position in higher-level government bodies.

Other places are also looking at overseas returnees.

Beijing's labor authority started to hire overseas returnees to be village heads in 2011. More than 30 applied for the posts, and five were recruited.

Song Xin has a master's in education from La Trobe University in Australia and now works as assistant to the head of Paifang village in Beijing's Chaoyang district.

"The premier obstacle I need to conquer is how to communicate with villagers," the 28-year-old said. "I told myself I am a farmer from the day I took the job."

He said by doing this, he can really understand what villagers are thinking about.

Song's job also requires him to mediate civil disputes. "Sometimes the work is like cracking a hard nut, but it helped me understand how to be down-to-earth, as well as the importance of dealing well with every small issue," he said.

Overseas returnees have a comparatively broad scope of vision and active thinking and their innovation is an advantage, but grassroots jobs are not yet major employment channels for them, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, which is in charge of the city's recruitment of village heads.

Overseas returnees are less active in applying for grassroots positions and are less stable in retaining the work compared with graduates from domestic universities, the bureau said.

Among the five overseas returnees recruited in the city, three have quit, it said.

Liu Xin, a professor of human resources at Renmin University of China, said it's normal for overseas returnees to take grassroots jobs because the employment situation is tough. Many find it hard to get a job when they return to China, he said.

"Managing a village requires a deep understanding of the rural political situation, including grassroots democratic elections," Liu said. "It can take a long time."

Courses offered by overseas schools don't necessarily suit domestic jobs, he said.

-by CHEN XIN