[QDaily Big Survey] You're Graduating From College — Have You Found a Job Yet?

More than 50 face-to-face interviews and 2,000 online questionnaires: some clues for understanding a group that has clearly become very important.

Editor's note: Since June, QDaily has been running a special series built around interviews and a set of short stories. We sat down face to face with more than 50 college students to talk about how they spend money, how they think about work and love, how they handle their own anxiety and confusion, and how they use the apps on their phones. All of them are undergraduates or recent graduates, from Nanjing University, Sichuan University, South China Agricultural University, Shanghai International Studies University, Tianjin Normal University, Peking University, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and elsewhere.

At the same time we put out an online survey on the same subject, open to students at any university. So far 2,080 people have answered it, so you can also see what a larger group thinks about these "grand questions."

QDaily did not start this series to produce a statistical report. It began with a plain piece of curiosity — how do college students spend money now? — which set off a chain of further questions. To be precise, we intend to use our interviewees' answers to make a few points. Those answers are not broadly representative, but they are enough to show something.

The second piece, below, is about how college students think about work. We welcome your views.

Early this year Zhang Chi, a senior at Fudan University, built himself an Excel spreadsheet listing every company he had applied to: the industry, the date he submitted the online application, the written test, the first round of interviews, the second, and so on. Part of the reason was simply to keep things straight. The bigger reason was that when hiring season ended he wanted to show the sheet to people and say, "Look at my record of glorious battles."

Reality was not that smooth. "In the end a lot of them cut me, and on the spreadsheet those are marked in red — one red cell after another. How do I put it? It's the kind of evidence Xianglin's Wife carries around when she recites her sorrows to everyone."

In two months he applied to 50 companies and interviewed at twenty or thirty. Some rejected him after six or seven rounds. The company that hired him was the last one he interviewed with.

This summer 7.5 million students in China will graduate from college, like Zhang Chi, and a large share of them will go to work. But that share keeps shrinking. A survey by MyCOS found that 77.4% of 2015 graduates eventually landed full-time jobs; in 2014 the figure was 79.2%, and in 2013 it was higher still, 80.6%.

Among the students we interviewed first, spread across different majors and different schools, almost every one said the plan after graduation was to keep studying. At first we took that for a coincidence. It was not.

Also by MyCOS's estimate, in 2015, 3% of students started companies and 10.1% chose to keep studying — both figures up from the year before. And in April this year a survey from 51job found that 2016 graduates planning to continue their studies (26.0%), become civil servants (3.0%), or start a business (1.3%) together came to nearly 30%.

Even a student from an elite university, like Zhang Chi, does not easily find the job he wants. Beyond that, there are more reasons pushing college students to refuse to go straight to work.

"I haven't figured it out yet" is an answer we heard again and again. Yang Chang studies math at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. As a freshman he already knew he did not like math, but he still took an internship in financial mathematics, and by his junior year he was struggling with every side of the question. What ended the struggle was being recommended for a graduate program. "Getting the recommendation was a way of running away," he said. "Now I know what I'm doing for the next three or four years — grad school. It's settled. That choice pushed all the questions back."

Some students do choose work, of course — and often the reason is that they failed to win a grad-school recommendation.

Many others go abroad for graduate school. But at home or abroad, it often looks like an escape from the unknown of work and the future; going abroad just makes the choice look more "reasonable," and shinier.

A few students have thought their refusal to work all the way through: they are afraid of it. "Doing the same things day after day, an endless loop — it gives you a kind of dread." At school, they point out, when an exam is over the course is over. You at least know where the end is.

Their worry is groundless. A survey by ManpowerGroup found that 12% of millennials worldwide — in China, people born between 1984 and 1996 — expect they will stop working only on the day they die. In China the figure is 18%.

When college students weigh whether to work, plenty of other things come into it: hukou benefits, how close they would be to family, the rising cost of living.

Experts at Harvard advise keeping rent within 30% of after-tax income, which is no easy thing for many newly graduated Chinese students. That may explain why "shared housing" has caught on. Bloomberg argues the cause is that "an ever-widening wealth gap and a stalled economy leave young Chinese unable to pay the high rents of big cities, and their only recourse is to embrace the sharing economy even further than people in Western countries do, living under one roof" — in some rooms, six or seven to a room.

Happily, this graduating cohort does not stubbornly measure a job by the old yardsticks: the company's name, the size of the salary, whether the title sounds good. In interview after interview we heard answers built around personal growth and personal values. A survey by Goldman Sachs likewise found that what China's millennials value most is whether a job lets them realize their ambitions.

Wang Shan, a senior in Peking University's advertising program, does not want the stable, civil-servant kind of job. She interned at a startup and then took a full-time offer there. Her parents in Hebei think the work is too tiring for a girl, but she talked them around, because the job gives her a sense of accomplishment. "My pay isn't high and I don't have a Beijing hukou, but I think doing what I love matters most."

Like Wang Shan, Zhang Chi is more or less satisfied with the company he is about to join; the last row of that Excel sheet is finally marked in green. Still, when he thinks back on those dozens of interviews his face tightens. "After you get cut in different rounds you start denying yourself, wondering whether you did something wrong somewhere. It hurts. I have to change."

Change until the interviewer likes what he sees.

After dozens of revisions he can finally settle into the last summer of his college years. But when the summer ends he may begin to ask himself whether the person walking into that company is really him.

Many questions have no answers, least of all the hard ones about the future and about yourself. Sometimes they wish they could see ahead: "I wish that as a freshman I'd known that senior year meant finding a job, and prepared more for it — then junior and senior year wouldn't have hurt so much. In freshman and sophomore year I was thinking about the grad-school recommendation and about having fun; all my energy went into playing around and into that recommendation. I really wish someone had told me back then that I'd have to face all this, and that I should start preparing early. I've even had the thought that I'd like to do college over again."

Note: interviewees' year in school and age are as of the time of the interview

Since work lasts a lifetime, you should keep a little idealism

I have a bright future — why fuss over what I gain or lose now

I just graduated, so my pay isn't high and I don't have a hukou, but I think doing what I love matters most. I'm still young. (A woman from Peking University's advertising program, now working at a private advertising company)

A freelancer, mainly for the freedom

Some people here run out of money after a year of school, so they take a year off and go teach painting to students cramming for the college entrance exam — about 100,000 yuan a year. On that you can stretch college out to seven years. There are two or three like that in every class; our department has more than 40 people.

I also worked at a bar (a livehouse). That was my first job: carrying drinks and cleaning up. The taxi there and back cost 20 yuan, and I made 50 yuan a night, 600 a month at the outside. But I just liked the thing itself. Now there's a lot more to think about, like the rent I'll face after graduation.

The way I used to find work was by chasing it down — for instance, by talking a lot with Uber drivers. A driver would tell you which malls were being renovated; every time I went I'd run into someone who needed a mural painted, and that got me in touch with the designers inside. If we got along, they'd pass me other jobs. A fairly old-fashioned, person-to-person way of doing it. After a few of those runs I started building my own network, and a fixed group of people began coming to me for work. (Yulü, fifth-year sculpture major, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts)

I want to do something and have it recognized

As a kid I wanted to be a doctor. Back then I thought a doctor was a deeply respected thing to be — that probably drew me more than the money did. I want to do something and have people recognize it. If a patient is in great pain and leaves feeling light, that's an enormous accomplishment. After graduation I hope I can stay on at Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, make attending physician quickly, and ideally become known for one disease — so that when people mention it, they think of me. (A student at Tongji University School of Medicine who asked not to be named)

I want to find my own value

Our school has partner universities, and some classmates choose to do their graduate work there. For jobs, Shanghai International Studies University has a connection with Volkswagen — working as a foreign-language secretary — and a lot of people take that route. I think they're all people controlled by whatever opportunity turns up: anything that comes along, they try it. I don't want to be like that. I want to find my own value first, and then choose something to do. (Xu Jing, German and international trade, Shanghai International Studies University, senior)

Interesting work, interesting people, things to learn

I don't think you need to make your job too stable when you're young. I'd rather make four or five thousand yuan a month without stability than a steady two or three thousand. But if the pay is low and you learn a lot, or meet interesting people, and the work itself is interesting, that's fine too. If you just sit there waiting to die, there's no point. (Lü Bingjie, Russian major, Tianjin Normal University)

Whatever comes before the real job — a startup, an internship — is trial and error for finding work later

Starting a company now lets me make judgments about the future

For me a startup is a process of trial and error. Say we set a price for a product: I'm not shouting out a number, there's logic behind it, there's a price margin. If it works, our earlier judgment was right. If it doesn't, we go find out which link broke — the market, operations. Something in the chain went wrong and we go find it. That process is genuinely enjoyable, like when I play cards: you have to enjoy watching your judgment proved or disproved. (A Peking University senior, now graduated, who had already raised a pre-A round)

I need to know what I don't want

For me an internship amounts to trial and error: it tells me clearly what I don't want to do. I interned at CCTV, for instance. It was exhausting — they had no real time off, and the moment something broke you had to be on site. During the internship I met reporters in their forties and fifties who were still doing very basic work. I don't want my career to end up like that. (An anonymous Peking University student)

An agency lets you touch more industries

After graduation I went to Deshuo Consulting. I picked it because it's an agency: you deal with all sorts of client companies, which helps you work out which industry actually interests you. But if you lock in on fast-moving consumer goods from the start — Procter & Gamble, say, or L'Oréal — you've already locked in on cosmetics or household goods, and you may never touch another industry. (Cello, business administration, Shanghai International Studies University, senior)

I love theater — I didn't want to just sell tickets

I used to run a ticketing platform selling discounted tickets to plays and stage shows by Shanghai college students, mostly to spread theater among students. Jiao Tong has hundreds of dorm rooms in 30 buildings; I spent three days knocking on every door, handing out flyers for the app, and I went to the cafeteria to get classmates to scan the code and follow us. Within one or two weeks we had 1,500 followers. In the end I gave it up, because a third of the student tickets to the 2014 Strawberry Music Festival in Shanghai — more than 800 of them — sold through our platform... and what good is that? I wanted to promote theater. (Yang Chang, math department, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, senior)

I'm a meticulous person — I planned my working life long ago

A military scholarship at least comes with a guarantee

I sat for the military scholarship program partly because I thought the job came guaranteed, and partly because the cutoff score was low — I got in 20 points under the regular line. My family supported it too. They figured that even if I never join the army, these years in the program will at least keep me fit. (A Peking University student entering his senior year and preparing for a grad-school recommendation; if it comes through, he will stay in the military scholarship program)

Certificates, for the sake of more options

I study law, but I'm also sitting for the Certified Public Accountant exam and picking up other skills, just so I have a bit more room to choose later. (Chen Ruike, admitted without examination to Peking University's law master's program)

A good major means nothing to worry about

I've never been anxious about work, because it's basically settled. I finish the PhD, and if I get on well with my advisor I might consider a postdoc after that. There's no real pressure about work either; what I do is mainly about aviation generators, and demand for that job is large. The only thing that troubles me about work is that it's all gone too smoothly, with no waves at all. (Bai Cheng'an, fluid mechanics, Peking University, senior, going straight into a PhD)

A high salary matters a lot

I'm from Jiangxi, and after graduation I want to keep studying. Our architecture department mostly does design. In recent years a lot of foreign firms have set up companies in China, and demand for domestic graduates is fairly high — the pay they offer is also better than at some domestic design institutes. (Mr. Z-Over-Three, Sichuan University)

Think about it, and work is a rather terrifying thing

Fear of dealing with people

Work always strikes me as frightening, because you have to please your superiors and manage your relations with coworkers. All of that already sounds exhausting. For a promotion you may even have to give your boss gifts — I can't imagine it. (Sun Shu, architecture, Sichuan University, preparing for a grad-school recommendation)

Fear of being a screw in the machine

I spent time at Budweiser. I went because from freshman year on, recruiting talks painted fast-moving consumer goods companies as wonderful — L'Oréal, Unilever. They'd all talk about high pay and a big platform, and hand out free samples at the talks. But a few seniors one or two years above me told me privately that the work is in fact exhausting: someone else could do your job, and the bigger the company, the more you are a screw in the machine, with less room to act on your own. (Cello, business administration, Shanghai International Studies University, senior)

Fear of nine-to-five boredom

I interned at Xiamen C&D's international travel agency. Working somewhere that nine-to-five and by-the-book was a bit boring. Sometimes I'd watch the full-time staff come in each morning, do whatever there was to do, and leave on the dot in the afternoon... So I'd rather go to a foreign company. (Chen Jing, English department, Nanjing University, senior, going abroad for graduate school and hoping to work at a foreign company when she returns)

Fear of what the office talks about

I used to think Trip.com Group was a great platform, but once I got there I found the job didn't give me what I wanted. On my team, for example, I'm the youngest — born in December 1993 — and most of the team was born in the '70s and '80s, and everyone else is married. The only thing anyone talks about is their sons and daughters. (Zhang Yunfei, Korean major, Shanghai International Studies University, senior)

Fear of boredom with no edges

I think working and being at college will feel very different. Work means doing the same things day after day, whereas at school you have a goal — an exam, say, which you can finish and be done with. With work you feel it's an endless loop, and that gives you a kind of dread. I think about spending my whole life that way and feel unwilling to accept it, or wonder where the meaning of life is. (Wang Mingchi, Chinese department, Fudan University, senior, recommended for grad school)

I'm not ready, so I'll keep studying

I don't have much creativity

I used to think I could make a living on creativity. Then I found out I don't have much. (Sun Shu, architecture, Sichuan University, preparing for a grad-school recommendation)

I don't feel I've learned any real skill

Honestly, the recommendation comes down to your grade point average. When you have the chance, not taking it feels like a waste, and plenty of people around me are going to grad school. On top of that I don't feel I learned much as an undergraduate, and I don't much want to leave campus, so I'll stay a while longer. (Qin Yi, School of Journalism and Communication, Nanjing University, senior, now recommended for grad school)

Fear of standing still

After graduation I'm going to the University of Bristol in Britain for a master's in history. I never considered looking for a job, because I don't want to enter the workforce; entering the workforce feels like standing still. My undergraduate major was mechanical and power engineering. At college you keep taking in new things, but once you're working you use the knowledge system you already have to adapt. I probably don't have much enthusiasm for making money, and I don't think it would feel like much of an accomplishment. (Tao Jiayi, mechanical and power engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

First settle what to do with the next three or four years

I love theater, and that was a painful struggle that lasted into the second half of junior year. The upside was that in the end I got the recommendation. Getting it was a way of running away: now I know what I'm doing for the next three or four years, I'm going to grad school, it's settled, and that choice pushed all the questions back. At least I can keep doing the theater club while I'm still in school.

I chose to compromise — that's the only way I can put it. I'll still have to find a normal job later; I still need to eat... I'm from Hubei, a wage-earning family, ordinary, very ordinary. (Yang Chang, math department, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, senior)

He explains his own freedom with very classical political economy

After a long time at school you feel out of step with the society outside; personally I think I'll take the academic road. I've interned, and working at a TV station was nothing much either — technical work, very much an assembly line, do it this way this episode and the same way next time. Work is alienated labor. As Marx said, every day is a standardized life. I find that pointless, and once you're working you can't go out shopping whenever you like. Right now I'm freer. (Ding Yijun, media studies, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, senior)

I just want something simple

After graduation I'll probably go to the United States, because the environment in China doesn't suit me. The coursework here is too hard, I can't master it; abroad it will be easier.

Going abroad on exchange made me surer about leaving. Life there is relatively simple and easy, without so many demands. Class in the morning, come back at noon and cook something, take a nap, class in the afternoon, home in the evening to do homework, then go shopping with friends when the homework's done, or play some ball and work out. I like that kind of regular life. (Sun Shu, math department, Sichuan University)

I think I've found what I like doing (which may also mean I haven't settled on a career

Someone listens to me

Teaching a class yesterday, I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Think about it: I've read all these books, and when I go on about them to my roommates they don't want to hear it. So I have to find someone I can tell, "You have to listen." (Guo Hao, a military-scholarship student at Nanjing University who paid 60,000 yuan to buy himself out)

As long as it has to do with games

Livestreaming seems very hot to me, and I'm confident about my own skill. It isn't for the money; call it playing, I guess. On a good day I'd get anywhere from a few dozen to a hundred followers, and they'd send me gifts, though never much money. So far nobody has cursed me out.

I basically stopped competing two years ago. I'm getting older and my reflexes and my hands can't keep up. Back then it was mainly for fun; I never meant to turn pro. Only people with a dream turn pro. (Pan Chen, dropped out of Tianjin Normal University, gaming and livestreaming)

I love performing

I love the feeling, when I'm performing, of being the focus — like giving a presentation at college, where you draw everyone in by the way you tell it. Magic performs something amazing; a presentation lays out a piece of knowledge or an idea. I've done more than 20 shows, including corporate gigs at hotpot restaurants. The least I ever got for one was 300 to 400 yuan. (Wu Tiantian, economics, Lanzhou University, junior)

No one can replace me

I want a certain amount of freedom in my job. I don't want to be a civil servant, or an employee at a company, one link on a very long assembly line. I want to be someone no one can replace. Civil-service work is stable, but I think the work itself has no value. (Qingqing, cultural industry management, Tongji University, recommended for grad school)

"That's just what work is"

The interviewer will assign it

After graduation I'm going to a Japanese company... The interviewers sorted each of us into a position based on our style and our performance. We had no right to choose our own positions. (Cui Ying, Japanese department, Shanghai International Studies University)

A foreign company has its own rules

I spent time at a foreign company and found the environment fairly relaxed, without such a strong sense of rank. The training system and the career path were clear: even someone like me, who hadn't studied anything related, got a thorough onboarding, and there's a regular raise and promotion every year or two. (Tong Haoling, English department, School of Foreign Languages, Nanjing University, senior, going abroad for graduate school)

I found it through an internship

It was the second half of junior year and I was looking for internships on Weibo, on accounts like @Shanghai Internships and @Shixiseng. I saw Disney was hiring and went for it. I ended up in Disney's HR C&B department, working mainly on compensation and benefits. Day to day it's spreadsheets and data, processing invoice reimbursements and payslips. (Xu Chengdong, male, from Yantai, Shandong; School of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai International Studies University, senior)

Order to keep myself in line

A government job makes you feel your life has been set on the right track: you have to be asleep by 10:30 because you're up early the next day. Your life is held to a set rhythm, and that rhythm makes me feel I do things in order. I'm a somewhat disorderly person myself, so I like it a lot. (Fang Jiating, advertising, Huazhong Agricultural University, sophomore)

I want a job with some free time in it

After the PhD I want to be a university teacher, do academic work, and once I have the title, teach my classes, make a living and enjoy it, because I don't much like nine-to-five work. My mother teaches physics at Guangxi Normal University, and her job looks to me like an easy one with a good sense of accomplishment. The pay isn't high — five or six thousand yuan — but it's steady. (Zhang Xiadan, Chinese department, Sichuan University, continuing her studies)

And what do your parents think about your job?

They've heard of China Mobile, not Toutiao

During fall recruiting I found a technical position with China Mobile back home in Huizhou (pay of roughly 4,500 to 5,000 yuan). My family all thought it was fine — stable, and close to home. Recently I interviewed for a marketing job at Toutiao and got it, but when I told my family the idea, they more or less ganged up on me. They think it's hard for a girl to make her way far from home, and that a girl shouldn't wear herself out like that.

I really do resent my relatives interfering in my choice of work. Why does everyone have the right to criticize your life and your choices? Trying to talk it through with my parents hasn't gone well either. (Chen Lixuan, College of Mathematics and Informatics, South China Agricultural University)

Somewhere far from home

What I found is a job teaching high-school Chinese in Shenzhen's Pingsha New District, paying 8,000 to 9,000 yuan a month, which is normal pay for a teacher. I'd rather not be too close to home; I don't want to be tied down by my parents. (Lin Xuan, School of Liberal Arts, South China Normal University)

You ought to study all the way to a PhD

I've never thought that clearly about work, honestly. Taking the grad-school recommendation was first of all following the crowd, and second my family's influence. Both my parents are middle-school teachers, and they think that if you study you should study all the way to a PhD, so I didn't think about it much myself. I could get the recommendation, so I took it.

My floor for what I expect from work later is this: if it comes to that, I go home and teach high-school physics. I have that much confidence, and I don't see anything wrong with it either. (Chao Yue, now a PhD student at Peking University)

We also ran a questionnaire on college students and work. The results:

Note: this survey was launched by QDaily on the Wenjuanxing platform on June 6, 2016. As of the evening of June 30, 2,080 people had taken part.

Graphics: Lin Yuyao

Note: Luo Zhen also contributed to this article

Cover image from: Giphy, Visual China Group, Bloomberg