While employment fairs and campus recruitment are both popular ways for students and recent graduates to find a job, white-collar workers and experienced managers prefer to find new jobs on the Web or through professional headhunters, according to a recent survey.
 
Zhaopin.com, one of the largest Web-based headhunters in China, surveyed 890 people, mostly in Shanghai and Beijing, about their favorite way to search for work.
More than 22 percent of recent university graduates surveyed said that they would go to large-scale job fairs to look for new jobs and about 18 percent students said they prefer campus recruitment activities.

About 15 percent of recent graduates surveyed said they prefer to find job information through teachers or friends, the survey said.

"As job fairs and campus recruitment provide opportunities to communicate with employers directly, they seem to be more reliable for inexperienced university graduates," said Liu Hao, Zhaopin's CEO.

Those who have been in the work force for two or three years say they prefer to search for jobs online. About 20 percent of office workers surveyed said the Web is their favorite place to look for a new job.

The survey indicated that another 18 percent of office workers will head directly to the Website of their target employers for possible job opportunities, while only 15 percent of them will choose to attend job fairs.

That's because office workers cannot afford as much time as graduates can, and online job-seekers can find lots of information in their free time or while sitting at their desks, Liu said.

"Besides, with some working experience, employees have some general idea of where possible opportunities might lie and won't rashly rush into crowded job fairs, which usually aren't very efficient," Liu explained.

About 23 percent of the managers with at least five years of experience surveyed said they will turn to professional headhunters if they decide to look for a new job. Few of them said they would be willing to read through newspaper recruitment ads or headhunting Websites.

"Ordinary job opportunities offered obviously cannot satisfy the needs of experienced managers who have high job demands," Liu said.

(China Daily April 6, 2004)