FEATURE: Beijing math grads hope online auction adds up to job offers

FEATURE: Beijing math grads hope online auction adds up to joboffers

By Xinhua writer Yang Bo

BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Desperate for jobs, 15 graduatingmath students in China's capital have put themselves up for auctionat the e-commerce site Taobao.com.

The 15 "recommended goods" have photos and resumes. Their"starting prices" range from 2,000 yuan (about 293 U.S. dollars) to3,000 yuan.

"The price is our expected monthly pay," said Wang Danke, the webstore owner and member of the graduating class in the Department ofMathematics, North China University of Technology in Beijing. "We'dlike to 'sell' ourselves with our wit."

Among the 33 graduating students in Wang's department, 24 arelooking for jobs. Seven have gone on to postgraduate study. Only twohave offers from employers, said Wang.

Finding jobs for college graduates is a growing problem in China.It became an even harder task for the 6.1 million June graduatesafter the country began to feel the effects of the global downturn.Compounding the problem are 1.5 million graduates who failed to findjobs last year, a half-million increase from 2007.

For positions that offer decent pay or residential status inplaces like Beijing and Shanghai, hundreds of applications flood infor each vacancy.

"Most of the time, all employers know about you is what's on yourresume, which is just one more piece of paper in a pile," said Wang."After four years of hard study, our classmates feel like a bumpercrop of oranges, with no one giving a bite." Thus, they turn to theInternet.

"My class is a class of elites: basketball captain, Olympicvolunteer, versatile painter, and backbones of the student union,"Wang's ad on the website proclaimed. "We just need a chance."

The sale was suspended for three days in mid-March, afterTaobao.com became concerned about the possible illegal use ofpersonal information. Wang had to get his classmates to providenotarized authorizations.

"We have confirmed with the students and their university thatthis is truly a method of job-hunting," said Zhao Jingpeng of theconsumer service department of Taobao.com. "We decided to make anexception to our rules, given the tough employment situation."

Wang said his classmates were interviewed by headhunters Tuesday,who said they "admired the students' energy to act."

Chinese officials have told new grads they need to be flexiblewhen looking for jobs. The State Council, the Cabinet, last monthurged college graduates to seek work in smaller companies and saidit would do more to help graduates start businesses.

China "will introduce flexible employment mechanisms to relievethe employment pressure created by college graduates entering theworkforce," said a plan on national economic and social developmentfor 2009, which was approved by the country's top legislature onMarch 13.

Wang said small companies or start-up opportunities "might findus" online, which wouldn't be the case at crowded job fairs.

Xiong Sidong, head of Fudan College at Shanghai's FudanUniversity, said Wang and his classmates should take a more seriousapproach to their job hunt.

"College graduates should have fixed career goals," said Xiong,"and e-commerce websites such as Taobao.com, where people shop foreverything, are hardly the right places for them to find idealjobs."

"Some illegal intermediary agents may also make use of thestudents' information," warned Liu Jiande, an official of theShanghai Administration of Industry and Commerce.