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A recruiter explains job responsibilities to applicants at a recruitment fair in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, on February 28, 2024. The fair has gathered more than 2,000 enterprises, offering nearly 40,000 jobs. In order to boost employment, job fairs are being held nationwide. Photo: VCG

As the golden season for job seeking in March and April arrives, multiple colleges and universities across China have urged the fresh graduates in 2024 to swallow their pride and proactively develop their careers in the rural areas and at grassroots positions or join army, rather than merely focusing on the limited enrollment quota for further education or job opportunities at the civil service sector and government-affiliated institutions. 

The mobilization came no long after the announcements of the written test scores of the national postgraduate entrance exams and the national public servant exams, which decided that those who failed the exams will soon face the problem of job-hunting, experts noted. 

College graduates will amount to 11.79 million in 2024, increasing by 210,000 from last year, according to the Ministry of Education.An open letter issued by the career center for college students at Hainan Normal University urged that despite that the domestic economy is rebounding and improving in 2024, the increasing complexity, severity, and uncertainty of the international environment represent a significant pressure on economy. 

The colleges and universities earnestly advise the graduates to recognize the situation and prepare themselves with an all-out effort in job-hunting, and combine their academic performance with practical experience and social activities to further understand their own strengths and weaknesses for finding a suitable position in the job market. 

The colleges also suggest the graduates to adjust their employment expectations and set realistic goals instead of excessively ambitious goals or underestimating themselves, emphasizing that through constant efforts, one will undoubtedly achieve their values. 

Heihe University in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province advocated those who have not secured a job should land a job first before choosing an occupation, and make their career planning scientifically. 

The employment and entrepreneurship guidance center for college students at Zhejiang Sci-tech University suggested the graduates look beyond limited enrollment quota for further education or job opportunities at the civil service sector and government-affiliated institutions. 

Following national strategies, the center said students are also able to engage in small-sized  enterprises and serve at the grassroots sectors, or develop their career by joining the army.

Job opportunities at government departments and policy-related positions could be "limited" and the shrinking job opportunities at companies and enterprises have constituted the prominent structural contradiction between supply and demand of talents, the School of Economics of Fujian Normal University noted the challenges for current job market in its proposal. 

Observers noted that the excessively fierce competition of entrance exams of postgraduate studies and the national civil servant exams have resulted in a series of social problems, including the "devaluation" of diploma, excessively high economic cost of education, and unreasonable ratio of investment and return. 

Graduates' anxiety cannot be relieved only by focusing on taking postgraduate studies or enrolling in as civil servants. Students' choices of employment should be further diversified, Xiong Bingqi, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, told the Global Times on Monday, suggesting that the universities should be driven by training talents qualified for employment. 

Colleges need to serve as a bridge between the graduates and enterprises by organizing more job fairs to help broaden the employment channels for students, experts noted. 

In this January and February, China's Ministry of Education issued a notice to deploy a campaign among colleges to promote employment of graduates in 2024, helping graduates in the employment through visiting the enterprises and employment guidance.