Civil service remains dream job

For the past few weeks, Guo Feifei has been a bundle of nerves. The 27-year-old foreign language college graduate had been working in Henan province as an assistant in a media company for nearly three years. Last month, she took the national civil service exam and the results will be revealed soon.

"Working in government will bring many benefits, including a higher social status and fixed working hours," she said. "More important, there may be special benefits that can save you lots of money."

Guo is one of the countless college graduates in China who want a job in government or affiliated institutes. Most holders of those jobs say they are satisfied, according to a report released on Monday.

About 60 percent of college graduates in 2011 who work in government or scientific institutes said they are happy with the job, the highest satisfaction rate of all types of jobs, according to the 2012 Chinese College Graduates' Employment Report.

The report is based on a massive survey by Mycos, a Chinese education data consultation and assessment company, which collected 256,000 questionnaires from 2,093 colleges in China.

The respondents belong to two groups: people who graduated from college in 2011 or in 2008. Those who have been working in government for more than three years were 10 percentage points less satisfied than 2011 graduates, but they still ranked as the most satisfied of the class of 2008.

However, the report also shows that about a quarter of the graduates who took a position in government or affiliated institutes in 2011 have a "poor employment" situation, which is defined by two factors: a job unrelated to the college major, and being among the 25 percent lowest-paid graduates in their place of residence.

"Even without using the skills they learned in college and being unable to get the high salary they expected, Chinese college graduates still have amazing enthusiasm for working in government. That is worrisome," said Wang Boqing, Mycos president. 

Even when they are aware of these problems, most graduates remain in government sectors.

"In the US, the most talented people are working in core industries. But in China, many are picked up through the civil exam and couldn't explore what they really learned or like. A big waste," Wang said.

Chen Guang, deputy secretary-general of the National Association of Vocation Education of China, said many young graduates choose their careers with too much concern for material wealth. "The report sets off alarm bells, and we need to reconsider the purpose of education," he said.

Nevertheless, the report also shows several popular and low-employment majors. Animation, law and biotech were listed as the top three majors with a high unemployment rate, low income and poor job satisfaction, while geological, maritime and coastal engineering were highly recommended with good career prospects.

In terms of job prospects, vocational colleges performed well, with the employment rate of their graduates last year rising by 2 percentage points from 2010. Korean language study and art design were the two majors with the highest unemployment rate in vocational colleges.

Tianjin Vocational Institute has participated in the survey since 2009. Dong Gang, president of the institute said that the annual report in the past three years gave good guidance to the school.

"I still remember the first report in 2009 showed that our students lack social communicating skills and the interaction in the class was also poorly directed," he said. "It was what I found in the convocation ceremony — most students were shy and even needed notes to talk to me."

He said the institute later opened courses targeting communication and encouraged interaction in class. "It's very helpful."