"I thought with my fairly good record, I would at least get some feedback but after almost a month, I haven't had a single answer," she said. "When I complained to some of my friends, they laughed at me and said: 'How can you look for jobs in job fair?"'

Ni said she should have known that already. "In my class at university, not one person found a job through a general job fair though we attended a lot before graduation," she said. "Job fairs are a trap to me now."

The Shanghai Consumer Association used to receive complaints about job fairs. "The job fair organizer would say international companies would have stalls there and promised a big attendance by employers, but the real situation left people desperate," said Lao Jianhong, an official with the association.

The annual job fair for graduate students always looks attractive to college students. The fair, held in the Shanghai Everbright Convention and Exhibition Center, attracted throngs of graduates, some even coming from distant provinces.

But many young attendees were angered when they saw that the well-known companies promised by the organizers in advertisements for the fair were not in attendance after all. And the number of stalls was also much smaller than promised.

"How can we find a satisfactory job in the fair?" a student from another province complained in a telephone call to the association.

Another case that infuriated young people was a "large-scale job fair" which promised thousands of posts from name-branded enterprises but only had fewer than 30 stalls open on the day. But the entrance price was 10 yuan.

"To make more profit from job fairs, some organizers hype a lot before the fair which then leads to the recent rise in complaints about them," Lao said.

Insiders said the main profit of holding a job fair comes from ticket sales at the entrance and from the renting of stalls. Ticket prices lately are from 5 to 10 yuan (US$0.6 to US$1.2). In some fairs targeting high-level applicants, the entrance ticket can cost 20 yuan (US$2.4).

Generally speaking, a fair with a 10 yuan entrance price should have more than 500 stalls available. But some fairs have only 100 stalls and still charge 10 yuan.

Though 10 yuan is a small amount, when the large crowds the job fairs attract is taken into consideration, the profits are considerable.

According to statistics provided by the Shanghai Talent Agency Association, just in the third quarter of last year, a total of 402,231 of people went to job fairs -- 112 percent higher than in 2001. At a ticket price of 10 yuan, the total income generated would be more than 4 million yuan (US$480,000).

In 2002, there were 160 job fairs according to the official figures. And in 2001, total spending at fairs was more than 200 million yuan (US$24 million) in Shanghai alone.

As well as making huge profits, agencies conducting job fairs also appear like mushrooms after rain. The number of talent agencies in Shanghai had risen from 114 at October 2001 to 270 by the end of last year. Both joint ventures and private enterprises can register to run job fair businesses. Previously, only government-supported agencies could hold such job fairs.

But the question remains of how to attract more companies to set up stalls? Some job fair holders use money as bait.

According to this practice, companies have to pay 600 yuan to 1,000 yuan (US$73 to US$121) to the organizers depending on the size of the fair.

"But some organizers will pay 200 to 300 yuan (US$24.19 to US$36.29) back to the person who is in charge of employment," said Miss Zhang who works in the human resource department of a local company.

The result is, attracted by the kickback money, some people use a company's capital to set up a stall at a job fair though they haven't any intention of employing anyone. Just by sitting in the stall and collecting resumes, they can earn money easily.

"I will never depend on a job fair from now on," Ni said. "It's okay because we have other ways of finding a job such as websites or waiting for a head hunter. At least they don't need entrance tickets."

(Shanghai Star January 16, 2003)