If your line managers have had a little project or ‘skunkworks‘ that they have wanted to try out for some time, maybe now it is the time to try it; with cheap and plentiful graduate students.

According to the China Perspective, only 35.6% of recent graduates who finished university in mid-2008 have found a job.

This comes from a survey of 1,000 graduates in major cities, and it was completed by the Social Survey Institute of China. The jobs the new grads are taking are way below their expectations, and only 27% were satisfied.

Obviously most are taking whatever they can get, at whatever salary is on offer. Some, I am sure, are taking jobs as free interns but even these are hard to find.

Boxed In

The biggest source of dissatisfaction for the graduates was monetary compensation but the second reason appears to be the quality of their personal network. They may be saying that the work they are taking is not what they would have normally taken, and so they have not gotten inside the kind of high-level network they expected to get inside.

This means they feel boxed in with people who cannot help them grow their careers. The feeling is that even if they get some experience they have little chance to get out of their current situation because the experience is not good, and the people they are working with less experience and qualified than they would normally expect.

This is very demoralizing but, then again, graduates have had very high expectations in the past. This may just be realities of life popping their overly-inflated hopes and dreams. Once they have come back down to earth, they may realize that the jobs they have will give them an opportunity to learn a business. If only they make the effort to listen and learn.

The vast majority of graduates (71%) have a very bleak notion for the labor market in the future, and 56% displayed anxiety about their careers.

Open the Box

HR should be announcing the results of this survey as a great way to rebuild departments that have been decimated by the economic slowdown, or even to replace non-performers.

We have to remember that what is happening now is only an economic slowdown. Business is still to be found. Restructuring internally to deliver goods or services more cheaply might bring that business to your firm, and a team of (really) inexpensive graduates may be just the ticket.

A Request-For-Proposal (RFP) can be pitched at a cheaper price, and your line managers will have energetic, enthusiastic people to support it. The new job can be pitched graduates as an opportunity, with a guarantee of coaching and mentoring to back it up.

HR will also be happy because the students should introduce some energy and urgency to the office culture. This is needed after 10 years of solid economic growth.

Tip ‘O the Hat to China Challenges