Global Business Journalism student Xiao Dan of China makes the case for why Pixar should hire her. This was a practice exercise for the class.

The mock exercise was part of the Global Business Journalism Program at Tsinghua University. It required each of the 43 students to pick a publicly traded company doing business in China, research it in depth and then make a case in four minutes for why the company should hire him or her.

The professors and the rest of the class played the role of skeptical corporate executives.

The presentations require students to explore the company's strategy, strengths and weaknesses and use that as a basis to explain where they personally would fit in. Miller says he wants to get students thinking about the next step in their careers and to see from their fellow students what the competition might be like.

The students made presentations on companies such as Nike, Siemens, Reuters, Volkswagen and The New York Times. Some of them boldly described the companies' weaknesses and how they personally might contribute to turning the situation around.

This is the second year Miller has done this exercise, and students rose to the occasion with some impressive sales pitches.