The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) will invite Chinese applications from both home and abroad to fill 56 positions.

The recruitment drive plans to fill 42 management posts and 14 professional vacancies in 14 fields, including engineering, international co-operation, administration and information.

Ten of the vacancies are senior posts which will be headhunted all over China as well as among overseas Chinese, while the other 46 positions would be filled by recruiting in the capital, said Li Binghua, head of the Personnel Department with the BOCOG.

Applicants should submit their resumes before the end of this month. Those selected for the shortlist will be required to pass standard tests in English and their particular area of expertise between November and December.

After making the necessary appraisals of the candidates who pass the tests, the BOCOG will make its final selections in January next year, said Li.

"We promise an open, fair and impartial recruitment system," Li said.

The standard tests will be conducted by a third party, the Beijing Educational Test Institute, with the whole process of recruitment be carried out under strict government supervision.

In the meantime the committee has made public a supervision hotline (0086-10-6400-1900) to collect complaints.

He said BOCOG now had some 110 employees. When the Games of the XXIX Olympiad is held in 2008, the number of staff will increase to more than 4,000.

"A great number of high-calibre, international and versatile personnel will be selected, trained and assigned to various posts," said Li. "Qualified foreign applicants will also be taken into consideration in future recruitments."

"We welcome those outstanding people who are interested in the Olympics to join us in running the best-ever Games in their history," Li added.

(China Daily October 18, 2002)