Update | It is easier to get into Goldman Sachs than be hired for this job at Chinese e-commerce giant

China’s largest e-commerce company wants two senior citizens to help it improve products and services for the elderly – and the pay is more than the median household income in the US

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About 40 million of China’s 772 million internet users are aged above 60, and the number is rising each year. Photo: EPA

Li Taoin Shenzhen

Published: 6:00am, 2 Feb 2018Updated: 11:47am, 2 Feb 2018

Getting hired by Goldman Sachs is harder than being accepted into Harvard University, but a newly-created job at China’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group Holding, is even harder to land.

Firstly, applicants must be above 60 years of age. Secondly, they must have a track record in community service and be an opinion leader. Thirdly, they must be good at square dancing.

Even with such stringent requirements, about 3,000 seniors vied for the two positions, translating to a success rate of 0.06 per cent. Goldman Sachs hires about 3 per cent of its applicants, Harvard accepts slightly more.

The prize for winning the coveted job? An annual salary of as much as 400,000 yuan a year (US$63,500), more than the average income of middle-class American families. The job description: help Alibaba better understand how older consumers shop online and improve that experience.

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With an ageing population, companies in China are intensifying their efforts to court the silver dollar, much as businesses have done in Japan and baby-boomers in the US. In China, many in this group, mostly retired, have ample savings and are sitting on gains from buying early into China’s property boom. They are also mostly offline and not participating in China’s internet revolution, which has seen companies like Alibaba develop the world’s biggest online shopping festival and Tencent Holdings pioneering advances in mobile payments.