What does the "employment warm-up competition" bring to summer interns? Strive to find reasons for being hired. "Poor students mistakenly enter top class" Wang Jiayu | Work | Reasons
Earlier this month, Wang Jiayu began his first job in life. This 2023 undergraduate graduate majoring in Visual Communication Design from the School of Art, Design, and Media at East China University of Science and Technology signed a contract with SAIC Group's new energy vehicle brand - Zhiji Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. this spring. Now officially joining, engaged in the brand experience innovation design business sector, showcasing his expertise in graphic visual design.
The foundation for the artistic young man's career in advanced manufacturing lies in his previous internship experience. If the employment of college students is the first step towards society, then internships, as a warm-up competition for employment, are increasingly becoming a step or even a threshold to step out of this step. Among the over 200000 fresh graduates in Shanghai this year, various internships before employment have become their "standard equipment". The quality of internships also to some extent determines the quality of employment.
As the saying goes, "Ideal fullness, realistic bone feeling", when truly entering an internship position, it is easier to find the gap between "ideal" and "reality", and thus find good ways to fill the gap with employment goals. Jiefang Daily's Shangguan News reporter found a summer intern like Wang Jiayu to see how he honed his employment competitiveness, adjusted and developed his career outlook during his internship.
From internship to employment, it may be the last and most difficult few kilometers to travel. About a year ago, during the summer of 2022, Wang Jiayu interned at the Creative Design Center of Zhiji Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. During the autumn recruitment period last year, I successfully became a regular employee and later completed the contract as scheduled, participating in the company's brand visual creative design work. It seems like the water is flowing into a canal, pushing the boat along the water. In fact, he was also in a state of confusion. Through continuous practice, he gradually became clear about his goals and built his own future plans.
Until the second semester of his junior year, Wang Jiayu's personal development path was still nowhere to be found, and a turning point appeared during the summer vacation. At the end of the spring semester in 2022, due to the pandemic and other reasons, they had a long summer vacation. At that time, Wang Jiayu realized that everyone around him was busy with employment or taking the postgraduate entrance examination. He thought he needed to take action quickly, so he submitted resumes to several companies on the website. Fortunately, four days later he successfully received three internship opportunities.
For resumes and portfolios, Wang Jiayu, who studies design, is concise and pleasantly surprised. During the production process, he does not showcase everything comprehensively, but instead makes some choices to enhance the match with the position and strive to win the favor of the interviewer in the shortest possible time. Similarly, the portfolio does not include all works, and should be kept within 25 pages as much as possible. Several projects with high value that can better reflect one's own abilities were selected.
At first, due to the distance between the internship location and the school, Wang Jiayu had some hesitation about joining Zhiji Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. After careful consideration, as I gradually delve deeper into my work and gain a deeper understanding of the company, I have also developed a deeper understanding of the job I will be engaged in, and I am becoming more and more fond of my current position. "Internship is not only a simple labor relationship, but also an important window to understand the workplace before entering society."
During the internship, Wang Jiayu actively communicated with colleagues and sought advice on the experiences of his predecessors in various choices made during job seeking, further education, and subsequent work, helping him quickly understand information such as employment progress, job content, and company situation. At the same time, he also explores what benefits his work can bring him, thinks about what kind of development path he is suitable for, and constantly clarifies the direction of his efforts after the internship and even in the future. "It was this internship experience in the early stages that changed my confusion and prompted me to gradually strengthen my belief in becoming a true member of the company."
Huali Fengxian Campus
However, after observing for a period of time, Wang Jiayu found that becoming a full-time employee is by no means an easy task. Originally, his department did not have a precedent for recruiting fresh graduates, and his colleagues were all skilled professionals who had been working in the workplace for many years. Their work maturity and quality were also particularly high. When he first started working, he even had a feeling of being a poor student and mistakenly entering the top class. In addition, there are many suppliers responsible for design outsourcing in the department, "their work is more efficient, and the software is also used very well."
How to find a reason for being hired? Wang Jiayu admitted, "If I can only do graphic design, then for the design director, hiring a supplier directly is obviously a more cost-effective choice." For newly hired interns, the company usually does not assign particularly difficult or important tasks. Therefore, at the beginning of the internship, he was mostly exposed to tasks such as printing materials, collecting information, and transmitting documents. As this internship is only his first job, lack of experience is inevitable, and he must also impress the company from aspects such as attitude, work ability, and differentiated competition.
One day, the department assigned Wang Jiayu a task that was originally planned to be completed in a week, but he only took 2 days to complete it. So in the next few days, he began his life of "finding work" and constantly "begging" his colleagues for work. At the same time, he actively participates in the daily work of the company and assists the team with a very proactive attitude. "These efforts have also deepened the company's understanding of my skill coverage."
Huali Xuhui Campus
But attitude alone is not enough. For a fresh graduate who hopes to become a full-time employee, what is more important is whether they can keep up with the pace of formal employees. Therefore, when encountering problems that truly cannot be solved, Wang Jiayu humbly seeks advice from colleagues, listens carefully beside everyone when discussing solutions, and carefully considers their design plans. What made him very grateful was that in the face of his harassment, his colleagues would always patiently impart knowledge and help him learn a lot in a short period of time.
Once, the department arranged for Wang Jiayu to find a font that met the requirements of the plan. However, when he presented more than 20 selected fonts to everyone, they found some dissatisfaction in each font. So, Wang Jiayu changed his direction, gave up searching, and at the end of the day, he relied on himself and self transformed, successfully "hand rubbing" a font library that could be directly printed. Nowadays, this font has been used in many materials of the company.
Compared to his role as an outsourcing supplier, Wang Jiayu strives to showcase his own advantages, improve work efficiency, and create differentiated competitiveness. Since it is difficult to surpass suppliers through simple graphic design, I will strive to demonstrate a comprehensive ability that is more advantageous than suppliers to accumulate advantages. After becoming a full-time employee, Wang Jiayu also participated in graphic design, content planning, computer animation rendering, video editing and other aspects of content, becoming a versatile person.
Wang Jiayu
"The important thing is that no matter what decisions we make, we must always have confidence in the path we choose and use the courage to work hard to make our youth bloom all the way." Wang Jiayu hopes that classmates who are looking for jobs can become the people we want to become. "If our hearts have aspirations, there is no fear of obstacles and growth."
Jiefang Daily's Shangguan News reporter learned that in order to jointly promote youth employment, the Shanghai Education and Health Work Party Committee and the Shanghai Education Commission are guiding universities and enterprises to establish off campus practice bases to promote internship employment for college graduates, promote further cooperation between schools and enterprises, sign long-term joint construction agreements, achieve deep school enterprise cooperation, establish normalized career development interaction channels, and create a professional talent "delivery chain" to help graduates develop their entire career as soon as possible.
