Higher education students who graduated this spring, usually a peak hiring season in China, have been strongly affected by the downward pressure on the economy and a growing glut of graduates trying to find a job due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. In order to bolster employment opportunities for new graduates, the MOE has therefore introduced a string of policy countermeasures such as opening up new channels for recruitment, providing targeted employment guidance services and implementing more effective incentive schemes.
On February 28, a 24365 Campus Recruitment Service Campaign for the 2020 higher education graduates nationwide was officially launched by the campus recruitment portal under the MOE’s auspices that offers employment services to national college students (http://www.ncss.cn/), in collaboration with five leading job-hunting websites including 51Job, Zhaopin.com, Boss Zhipin, ChinaHR, and Liepin.com. Aimed at helping 2020 graduates get their foot on the career ladder, the campaign exercises firm control over key aspects in the process of online recruitment, by maintaining information symmetry between employers and student applicants and sending push notifications of job openings to each graduate.
According to the National College Student Information Consultation and Employment Guidance Center, more than two million positions have been released through the 24365 Campus Recruitment Service Campaign within one week since its launch. The five online job sites have mobilized their own resources to provide graduates with selected job opportunities. For instance, Boss Zhipin set up a special task force and, by leveraging its mobile recruiting app that allows employers and jobseekers to chat directly, has introduced the most positions available, with the largest number of registered student users. Liepin.com has contributed all its campus recruitment information to the campaign and is preparing to add several functions in the next round of recruitment. So far, the six websites have registered 250,000 new 2020 graduates and received resumes in 530,000 job applications.
The MOE’s Department of Higher Education and the National College Student Information Consultation and Employment Guidance Center will shortly send a message, in the form of a letter, to fresh graduates, encouraging them to actively participate in the campaign and voluntarily seek employment opportunities.
It has been reported that, following the guidance of the MOE, provincial- and municipal-level education-related government agencies and local higher education institutions have also made considerable efforts to promote online hiring, online consultation, online contract signing, as well as other employment services, and have plans to hold over 20,000 online job fairs in March.
