AI helps young job seekers navigate competitive market

The spring recruitment season is 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 interviews.

Many universities and recruitment platforms have made AI technology available to help young applicants.

"Writing resumes is tough," said Wang Bing, a 26-year-old from Shanghai who will complete his postgraduate studies in June. "There are numerous ready-made templates available online, but it's 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."

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 didn't get a single one. It's 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. According to a tutorial on the college's WeChat account, students can get a standardized resume after registering and uploading their information on the college's website. They can also get access to mock interviews with virtual humans and get suggestions after finishing the interviews.

Li Qiang, vice-president of recruitment portal Zhaopin, said the use of AI can help applicants find suitable matches, as the data is analyzed in a standardized and accurate manner.

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

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 recovery with vacancies opening up in sectors such as services, new energy and high-end manufacturing.

According to a recent report by Zhaopin, employers sought talent with knowledge of logistics, hotel management, new energy research and modern manufacturing in the first three months of the year, thanks to an increase in service-related consumption.

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

"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," Li said. "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."

He added that the improving economy and employment promotion policies have produced positive results, which will help keep the job market stable.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said that over 36,000 job fairs had been organized nationwide by the end of last month, with over 29 million job openings available.