Big dotcoms have this year been sending out regional presidents and chief executive officers to campuses in a bid to recruit new university graduates.

However, the executive-level promotion has won little favor among the graduates, who are keener for a more tangible job, according to a survey by a top headhunting group.

Executives of big IT companies, who are usually treated as heroes among young students, toured universities and promoted their companies, but their efforts fell mainly on deaf ears.

Big names such as Kaifu Lee, president of Google China, Zhang Yaqin, vice president of Microsoft, and Chen Tianqiao, CEO of the Nasdaq-listed Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd, had tried to woo first-time job seekers at local universities like Fudan and Jiao Tong.

The recent survey by ChinaHR, one of the country's biggest Web-based headhunters, suggested that only six percent of students considered the presence of those big names to be a major attraction for them.

ChinaHR surveyed 218 local university graduates - nearly 60 percent of them science majors - about their attitudes toward campus recruitment activities.

More than 60 percent of respondents said that they didn't care about the celebrities at all.

"Some companies are just making use of their bosses' celebrity effect to build up their brand image among us," said Wendy Zhao, a student at Jiao Tong University. "But what we want are not shows; we want offers."

Zhao is not alone. The survey reported that 40 percent of students considered individual attention in handling job queries to be the most important factor in campus recruitment.

Zhang Tingwen, head of ChinaHR's human resources research center, said that prospective employers should take note of the survey results and be aware of the students' preference for a hands-on approach to recruiting.

(Shanghai Daily December 9, 2006)