Have you seen such picture which taken from one of Beijing Graduates Job Fairs this year? Now, 6.1 million graduates in China are fighting for jobs but only few succeed.
"One of our nation's critical missions is to try every effort to help and support graduate employment!" - Chinese President, Hu Jintao. Chinese government calls graduates to "Take Internship First, Get Employment Later", and seeks cooperation/partnership with companies to recruit interns in order to ease the tense of graduate unemployment challenges.
On the contrary, only few companies are considering doing campus hiring this year due to their business pressure. The white paper for talent demands by Shanghai foreign companies in 2009 stated, only 45.12% of SH foreign companies show their willingness to conduct campus hiring this year, but the amount will be quite limited. The research shows, among those foreign companies who have campus hiring plan, half of them will hire less than 10; 42.86% of those companies will hire 10-50 graduates; only 7.14% will hire more than 50. For those companies who have no campus hiring plan, 80% of them say the campus hiring freeze is due to economic downturn and crisis.
During economic downturns, organizations will typically look to tightening up headcount budget and close-off hiring. However, focusing on strategic talent initiatives and building up your talent base will allow companies to come out of the economic down-cycle stronger and shorten time-to-market ahead of the up-turn. It's actually great time to consider "Counter-Cycle Hiring" Strategy: Purposely hiring when your competitor isn't or during economic down-turn. What values will it bring to your organization in 2009?
1. Demonstrate your company’s Corporate Citizenship and strengthen government relations.
Unemployment issues of college graduates are listed top concerns of Chinese Government, Society, and Media. Chinese Government calls companies to offer more internship, to improve graduates capability of employment. It should be a great opportunity to draw Government, Society, and Media’s attentions to your company, demonstrate your company’s Corporate Social Responsibility, strengthen government's relationships, and dramatically improve your company’s employer branding in China.
2. Improve employer branding on campus
Launch a win-back battle to regain employer branding on campus against your competitors. In 2009, when other companies lose continue hiring ability, especially our traditional competitors, it's a great opportunity for your company to demonstrate our stability and solid growing capability by continuing our internship program in this summer.
3. Strategic hiring for top talents
Great opportunity to do strategic hiring by booking top talents on campus, while competitors lose the capability of continues hiring.
How to turn Crisis into Opportunity for your organization? Your decision will make a big difference this year!
