At what age do you start? Countdown to the employment season for the class of 2024, college students are looking for jobs

In the blink of an eye, it’s graduation season again this year, and for fresh graduates, the countdown to their employment season has begun.

So, does the path to employment only start in the fourth year of college or in the third year of graduate school? When is the best time to hit the road? From the third year of high school to college, some people say that from a "life-threatening middle school" to a "fun university", you can "let yourself go"; others say that it is better to "take the exam" late than to "take it" early, and to "brush up your resume" and "look for it" in advance. practice".

Recently, reporters from Jiefang Daily and Shangguan News interviewed many different subjects, from fresh and non-fresh undergraduates to experts in subject planning and career guidance, and observed that colleges and universities cannot be "Buddhist" or "flat". , nor can it become a vocational training center. As a school-running entity, it should match majors according to needs and improve the quality of education; and as a college student, it should also plan a path that suits itself, so as to avoid blindly pursuing multiple goals in the year of graduation, causing unnecessary "involution" .

[Colleges and universities adjust their major structure, allowing students to study both arts and sciences]

"When faced with the opportunity to 'guarante a postgraduate degree', I bravely chose to give up." Guo Ruochen is a dual-degree undergraduate student from the Business School of East China University of Science and Technology in 2024. Since the recruitment season, I have received offer notices from many hiring companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba, Ant Financial, and Meituan. After the winter break, I chose to officially sign a contract with Ant Group.

As the gold medal winner of this year's first National College Student Career Planning Competition Shanghai Division Employment Track Finals, she accurately positioned her job search position as a back-end development position in the computer field. In her view, in an era where digital transformation is in full swing, the combination of computers and finance is inevitable for the development of the industry and will also bring about far-reaching changes.

Therefore, in order to meet the demand for cross-functional talents in this industry, she majored in two bachelor's degrees in computer science and finance during college. From the time she decided to find a job in her sophomore year to the end of the autumn recruitment last year, she focused on cultivating her mathematical thinking, and gradually became more and more interested in the field of financial computing. I have a strong interest in the back-end development position and continue to pursue and realize the financial technology dream.

In fact, enrollment, training, and employment are linked together and the entire chain of education. As the supply side of talents, colleges and universities should connect with national and local needs and achieve "precision education" that "matches supply and demand."

Regarding the "Implementation Plan for Shanghai to Strengthen the Accurate Supply of Talents in Key Fields and Dynamically Adjust the Enrollment Structure and Scale of Higher Education Institutions" issued this spring, the heads of the Higher Education Division and Scientific Research Division of the Municipal Education Commission interpreted that among more than ten subject categories in my country, "Science, Engineering, The enrollment scale and structure proportion of "agriculture and medicine" exceeds 50% at the undergraduate level and more than 60% at the graduate level. In Shanghai, this proportion is lower than nationwide.

To this end, Shanghai has expanded the enrollment scale of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine. From 2023 to 2026, the enrollment proportion of master's degree students in science, engineering, agriculture and medicine will increase by about 5 percentage points, and the proportion of undergraduate enrollment in science, engineering, agriculture and medicine will increase. About 10 percentage points. Simultaneously increase the enrollment scale of majors in higher vocational colleges such as electronics and information, transportation, equipment manufacturing, civil engineering, and medicine and health. In the past three years, the proportion of enrolled students in related majors has also increased by about 10 percentage points.

Regarding the bilateral connection between supply and demand, experts from CIIC Consulting suggested that the competent authorities and relevant universities need to pay attention to the positions that are in short supply in enterprises. Universities should take into account market demand, actively optimize and adjust disciplines and professional settings, and accelerate the training of talents in related fields; the government should compile a catalog of urgently needed talents. Provide more targeted guidance for talent training in colleges and universities, corporate recruitment and employment of college students, and at the same time introduce more employment support policies for college graduates.

Coincidentally, Sun Jingbo, a senior boy from East China University of Science and Technology, is a fresh graduate of Chemical Engineering and Technology in the School of Chemical Engineering. Although he turned to employment after failing the postgraduate entrance examination, with his cross-disciplinary professional learning background, it took him less than half a month to receive the offer letter from Sinochem Huayi Engineering Technology Group Co., Ltd. This is a locally registered joint venture between China National Chemical Engineering Corporation and Shanghai Huayi Company. His two degrees are "marketable". "I signed up for a technical management management trainee position."

Regardless of whether you will take the postgraduate entrance examination in the future, colleges and universities focus on learning, and only by accumulating a lot during your studies can you realize your self-worth in the job market. "Regarding the employment of college students, some people think that they should plan as early as possible and practice as soon as possible, while others think that students should focus on their studies and not 'turn universities into vocational schools.'" said an employment expert at the Office of the Employment Leading Group of the State Council, an economics and education expert at East China Normal University. According to Jia Lijun, a professor at the School of Management, "In reality, some students start internships from their freshman year in order to 'brush up their resumes,' which delays their studies." This is "picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons."

"Many experiences and abilities cannot be obtained in the short term. The long-term development of students still depends on the comprehensive training completed in university." Professor Jia Lijun said bluntly, "Which company would want a company that doesn't even study professional courses well and only has internship experience?" "Where are the people?" He suggested that colleges and universities guide students to reasonably arrange internships and practical training, and help students systematically receive career education and find their career development position.

[Categorized planning goals according to different disciplines and majors]

"Whether we are directly employed or studying for graduate school, our lives ultimately lead to a career path." Jia Lijun said that from this perspective, career planning should be carried out as early as possible, "It can start as early as freshman year, at the latest No more than junior year.”

It is worth noting that, in the opinion of experts, planning is not about "rolling up" in advance. "Employment planning and career planning are two different things." Yang Juan, general manager of Zhaopin Recruitment's East China region and general manager of Shanghai Branch, told the Liberation Daily·Shangguan News reporter that if they just talk about employment, students can prepare for internships and other preparations in their junior year; But from a career perspective, students need to consider their future development paths during their sophomore year, including direct employment, self-employment, postgraduate entrance examinations, study abroad, etc.

Shi Xinran studied at the United Nations Development Program Rome Office.

"Good morning, bonjour, Здравствуйte, hello everyone." In the finals of the first National College Student Career Planning Competition held in Shanghai in May, Shi Xinran, a master's student at the School of Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures at Fudan University, finally won a gold medal, using Chinese, English and French. , Russia, the four official working languages ​​of the United Nations, as his opening remarks. Her career plan is to serve as the Associate Director of Information and Communications for the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, conveying China’s voice with a global perspective.

During her studies, she studied French and Russian, went to the University of Edinburgh in England and the University of Toronto in Canada as an exchange student, and also studied a second major in journalism. In the 2023 Fudan University "Rongchang Scholars" Global Governance Summer Camp, she went to the Rome Office of the United Nations Development Program to study, and also visited the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Program. "The most intuitive feeling at that time was that there were not many Chinese faces among the staff. I hope there will be more and more Chinese faces in the future."

Shi Xinran is an intern at the UNHCR Representative Office in China.

During the half-year internship at the UNHCR Representative Office in China, Shi Xinran independently operated 4 social platforms, with more than 10 million content views. During the same period, she also received a letter of recommendation personally signed by the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in China, which stated that she believed she could be qualified for any job in the future. Currently, she is preparing for the internship written examination of the United Nations Children's Fund and preparing to start the next journey.

From the perspective of Shi Xinran’s career goals, the liberal arts and management majors she studied have both “shortage” and “surplus” status. For example, the cultivation of foreign-related liberal arts and management talents is urgently needed in China and even Shanghai, and meets strategic needs. Among them, they include foreign-related legal talents, international organization reserve talents, compound international financial talents, international shipping talents, international communication talents, etc.

Jia Weidong, who competed at the same time as Shi Xinran and is in the vocational education track, is a man in science and engineering in the traditional sense. Coming from a city in the west that is dominated by traditional manufacturing industries, I was admitted to the Mechatronics Major of Beijing Vocational College of Electronic Science and Technology. The sophomore "recharged" his professional knowledge in his hometown and capital, conducted internship explorations, and won multiple scholarships and software copyrights.

"My corporate mentor is from BOE. He recommended me to study as an equipment engineer at BOE and participated in the X-ray chest X-ray screen project, which improved my sensor technology capabilities." Jia Weidong said. While at school, he led the robotics team to win the only national competition gold medal in Beijing's higher vocational colleges in the past three years in the China International College Student Innovation Competition. He also won the national competition special prize in the National College Student Robot Technology Innovation Exchange Camp and Robot Competition.

Currently, Jia Weidong is preparing for professional qualification certificates such as industrial Internet. "After graduating from college, I am willing to work on the front line, even for ten or twenty years. My goal is to be on par with the craftsmen of great countries." Jia Weidong told the Liberation Daily Shangguan News reporter.

Jia Weidong and his team members participated in the finals of the National College Student Robot Technology Innovation Exchange Camp and Robot Competition.

CIIC consulting experts believe that there is no final answer as to “from what age in college should employment begin?” and it is necessary to differentiate between different disciplines and majors. "Students in basic disciplines and academically oriented majors, such as mathematics, physics, philosophy, and history, have more career plans based on academic career planning; students in more applied and practical disciplines, such as computer science, engineering, and finance , marketing, etc. Students in these majors need to master professional skills and knowledge through practice, so planning and internship in advance are very necessary.”