More chances

According to its Career Development Center, about 4,000 graduates from Tsinghua University will be seeking jobs this year, with more than 30,000 positions available to graduates nationwide, during the college's recruitment events.

"Not only our students, but also those graduates from across the country can participate and may find their career opportunity through our online recruitment events," Zhang Chao says.

The Ministry of Education estimated that there will be 8.74 million college graduates this year, 400,000 more than last year. It means "huge pressure" on the job market, with the epidemic aggravating the situation, Weng Tiehui, vice-minister of education, told a recent news conference.

At Tsinghua University's first on-campus recruitment event for tech giant Huawei this year, more than 40,000 viewers attended the virtual session on Feb 24, with thousands of resumes sent, which is "unimaginable for an offline recruitment event", according to Chen Jie, deputy head of Huawei Beijing Research and Development Center.

Fang Jierui, an automation major graduate from Tsinghua University, submitted his resume to Huawei during the event from his hometown in Guangdong province.

"To be honest, I was quite worried about the outbreak's impact on the job market," Fang says. "But I am not that worried now, because my school has issued dozens of job information notices every day and has launched various career counseling services. I consulted once and submitted my resume to several companies."

To make job seeking accessible and smooth for all students, Zhang Chao says that the school has opened online counseling services and a hotline to help students better understand online graduation procedures and guide them in career development plan.

Besides virtual campus recruitment events, a large-scale online job fair, jointly organized by Tsinghua University, Hubei Provincial Career Development Center for College Graduates, Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, is being held from March 16 to 20. The number of participating companies and organizations is expected to reach more than 600, double that of last year.

The fair allows students to visit virtual "booths" set up by participating employers on the websites of Tsinghua University's Career Development Center and Hubei Provincial Career Development Center for College Graduates.

At the fair, students can review job opportunities, drop off their resumes and receive interview requests from recruiters remotely.

Besides these, Zhang Chao says an instant message feature will enable students to interact with recruiters through audio calls, or texts, to enhance user experience.

Zhang Chao says that there was a special recruitment section this year targeting overseas students on March 17 for more than 600 international graduates at Tsinghua University. More than 100 companies are taking part in the event.

Meanwhile, to help Wuhan, Hubei province, to recover from the coronavirus outbreak, there is also a section for companies in the city at the fair.

Next month, a virtual career fair organized by Tsinghua University and the Beijing College Graduate Career Center will be held, and more events are on the way, Zhang Chao says.