BEIJING – The biggest-ever job fair of Renmin University of China (RUC), a top university in Beijing, attracted more than 2,000 job seekers on March 17, with more than 200 recruiters, ranging from manufacture to Internet, companies to government agencies, to help graduates in this competitive job-hunting year.

According to the Chinese government, an unprecedented 7.95 million graduate jobhunters will enter the labor market this year, increasing by 300 thousand more than 2016, and the job vacancy amount is growing slowly as well. However, this year is described as “the hardest year for job-hunting” by Chinese netizens.

“The reason why people call it the hardest is most graduates only target the job looking good even above their qualification, rather than a job matching them,” said Li Shuang, the spokesman of RUC career center.

“To help graduates find jobs, this year we set March as the Month of Spring Recruiting, with one fair each week, providing enough job choices for them, and hope they can find the job really suiting them.”

Last year, 69% graduates of RUC found their jobs via job fair, revealed by a report from the university’s Career Center. As an important way for graduates to seek jobs, job fair events are held in many other universities across China, during the spring-recruiting season.

In the job fair, Graduates swarmed in the long corridor between the booths.

“I’ve submitted three resumes and I believe wide net catches more fish,” said Wang Zhijia, an RUC graduate majoring in economics. He holds a general view that a job fair offers various work opportunities in a short time.

The job fair also attracted students nationwide. Yang Xue, a student of a science-technology university in northeast China, came to Beijing, where the largest amount of key universities are located, with her classmates.

“We noticed this fair on WeChat” – a leading Chinese social-media platform – “and we count on it to find jobs,” she said.

Job fairs held by key universities attract more recruiters with high quality: high salary and other welfare. Among those, many came in groups under the recommendation and organization of local governments.

There were also some state-owned enterprises which provide decent salary and Beijing Hukou (permanent residence permits), such as China State Construction Engineering Corporation(CSCEC), receiving a thick stack of 177 resumes through the job fair, including Yang’s, which is the most popular company comparing with other small or startup corporations usually receiving 50 around.

“We’d like to recruit employees from the job fair held by key university where are top talents of China,” said Zhong Qing, the HR of CSCEC. However, the amount of this kind of “better job” is limited, “We may hire only three of them, ultimately.”

While Li Shuang says “the job fair provides a wide job choices,” he also advised students to adjust their job expectations: “Find the position matching your ability, this is the solution to the hardest job-hunting year.”