AI helps job applicants navigate competitive market

The spring recruitment season is on in full swing and artificial intelligence is helping young job seekers improve their chances of securing employment by optimizing their resumes and training them with the help of mock job interviews.

Described as "gold March and silver April" in Chinese, spring is considered the best time in the first half of the year to look for jobs in China. The job market has been witnessing a continuous recovery with vacancies opening up at a fast pace in sectors such as services, new energy and high-end manufacturing.

According to a recent report by recruitment portal Zhaopin, employers have been seeking talent with knowledge of logistics, hotel management, new energy research and modern manufacturing in the first three months of the year, thanks to the increase in services-related consumption and China's policy incentives to develop new quality productive forces.

Zhaopin said that in the first quarter, job openings for logistic talent saw the highest growth of 30.4 percent year-on-year on the platform. Vacancies in the hotel and catering sector grew by 24.7 percent year-on-year, followed by transportation-related job vacancies, which grew by 16.9 percent year-on-year.

"There is still great pressure on the job market because of the increasing number of college graduates, about 11.79 million this year, looking for openings. Each vacancy has seen 28 resumes being submitted on average this season, while the number was 23 during the same period last year. High-end manufacturing, new energy and biomedicine are promising sectors, but there is intense competition," said Li Qiang, vice-president of Zhaopin.

He added that the improving economy and employment-promotion policies of the government have brought about positive results, which will help keep the job market stable in the future.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said that over 36,000 job fairs had been organized nationwide as of the end of March, with over 29 million job openings released.

To help young applicants improve their chances of getting jobs, many universities and recruitment platforms have made AI technology available to college graduates, which they can use to spruce up their resumes and take part in mock job interviews to prepare for the real thing.

"Writing resumes is tough. There are numerous ready-made templates available online, but it is hard to choose the most suitable one. I have a lot of volunteering and internship experience, but I don't know how to showcase my strengths," said Wang Bing, a 26-year-old from Shanghai who will complete his postgraduate studies in June.

He said that his peers have used paid services online to polish their resumes, but the outcomes have not been consistent. "My friend and I used a paid service that cost 100 to 500 yuan ($14 to $69) in October. He got three offers using the optimized resume, but I did not get a single one. It is true that my friend's academic performance is better than mine. So I'm thinking of trying AI-aided services to polish my resume and set up mock interviews, and hope that will work."

Zhejiang Financial College in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, is among the early adopters of AI technology, which it uses to help students write the perfect resume and attend job interview simulations.

According to a tutorial published on the college's WeChat account, students can get a standardized resume after registering and uploading their information on the college's website. The students can also get access to mock interviews with virtual humans and get suggestions after finishing the interviews.

Li Qiang from Zhaopin, said that the use of AI technology for optimizing resumes and simulating job interviews can help job applicants find suitable matches as the available data is analyzed in a standardized and accurate manner.

He said that big data technology can remove redundant information in the resume, and the algorithms improve the match rates. He said since Zhaopin introduced AI services in January, over 400,000 young job seekers have used the service so far.

chengsi@chinadaily.com.cn