How do graduates in the new "professional with poor employment prospects" find jobs?

"Workplace Bonus" (ID: ZhiChangHongLi)

"Aren't the post-00s supposed to rectify the workplace? How come they can't even get into it?" The popular online blogger Yangmaoyue, who has 8 million fans, ridiculed the difficulties that fresh graduates face in finding jobs in his newly released video, triggering widespread discussions.

In the eyes of netizens, Yangmaoyue's behavior shows a lack of understanding and sympathy for the plight of job seekers. Personally, Yangmaoyue directly engaged in short-video creation after graduation. Currently, his quote for a 1 - 20-second video is 320,000 yuan, and for a 21 - 60-second or above 60-second video is 350,000 yuan. He lacks job-searching experience.

His words and deeds are also regarded by jobless fresh graduates as "consuming others' suffering". After all, in the current business environment, the latter not only have to compete in GPA and school background, but also in internships and majors.

A group of students graduating from new "trap majors" are finding it increasingly difficult to find satisfactory jobs.

Biomedicine: After four years as an accompanying patient consultant, I've become the "children" of the patients ╱ 01

Business Administration: Applying professional knowledge, I became the boss of a sports lottery store ╱ 02

Marketing: Searching for the glamorous imagination ╱ 03

Chinese Language and Literature: Grandma also supports me to be a game copywriter ╱ 04

The so-called "trap majors" usually refer to traditional disciplinary majors that are difficult to find jobs in, have a poor working environment, and low salaries.

Once, "Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, and Materials Science" were recognized as trap majors. Now, times have changed, and a new batch of trap majors have emerged:

• Biomedicine has a high learning difficulty, a high academic requirement, a long R & D cycle, and high risks;
• Business Administration has a broad learning content, fierce employment competition, and a tendency for the practice to be disconnected from the theory;
• Marketing has a low entry threshold, a high requirement for practical experience, and high performance pressure;
• Chinese Language and Literature has limited employment positions that are directly related to the major, low salary and treatment, and high learning and working requirements.

The interviewee Xueli told "Workplace Bonus" that she recently always wanted to switch to being a salesperson and wanted to try the role of "being able to make money for the company". After graduating from a well-known 985 university in China, she entered a top domestic brand company and engaged in marketing work for three years. Even though everything went smoothly, she still felt that "anyone can do the job of spending money for the company."

Another interviewee, Mr. Qin, also hopes that his workplace will have more choices. He resigned from the state-owned enterprise where he had been for four years and decided to pursue a doctoral degree, "to climb a higher mountain". After all, "the ultimate destination of studying Business Administration is to be a salesperson". If he does not improve his educational level, he is afraid that his career will always be trapped in the employment stage.

In addition to being restricted by education, internship experience, family background... Trap majors also show the characteristic of "generally having a high upper limit and a low lower limit" when it comes to employment.

Take the Business Administration major as an example. According to the survey of the iiMedia Research Center, among the graduates of the Business Administration major in China, 15% are engaged in sales positions, and the number of people who can engage in senior management positions is less than 1/3 of the number of people engaged in sales positions.

"Workplace Bonus" (ID: ZhiChangHongLi)

These "trap" majors have also begun to be voluntarily abolished by major universities. According to CCTV.com, in the 2024 vocational education at the junior college level, 68 majors such as E-commerce, Marketing, and Computer Application have been abolished, with 2,635 program sites removed. According to China Newsweek, more than 20 universities have planned to stop and withdraw some undergraduate majors in 2024, involving more than 100 majors - On August 23 this year, Northwest University issued an announcement to intended to abolish 7 undergraduate majors including Chinese Language, Financial Engineering, and Advertising.

Major cancellations, difficulties in finding jobs... However, for those who are already trapped in "trap majors", getting out of the predicament is just another compulsory course in life.

Biomedicine: After four years as an accompanying patient consultant, I've become the "children" of the patients

Due to family difficulties, Kang Yuan started working as an accompanying patient consultant when he was in college. For him, choosing to be an accompanying patient consultant as a part-time job is much more cost-effective than being a delivery person or a tutor. The latter two are as hard as being an accompanying patient consultant, but the income is far less than that of an accompanying patient consultant.

"Customers will of course trust college students with professional knowledge more," and a biomedical major can bring added value to being an accompanying patient consultant. Because he understands the relevant medical theories, Kang Yuan has some natural advantages when taking orders.

But in actual work, the help of biomedicine to the job does not meet expectations. "In fact, the knowledge that can really be used is relatively small, and it mainly depends on life experience."

Kang Yuan has been exploring the path of being an accompanying patient consultant for a while. To be an accompanying patient consultant, one must first be familiar with the hospital. Kang Yuan gets familiar with the locations of various clinics in the hospital through the hospital's mini-program. After understanding the general direction, he will also walk through it again according to the floor plan on the mini-program.

Being familiar with the hospital but not being able to see a doctor is also not okay. Kang Yuan had the experience of accompanying his grandma when he was in high school. At that time, his grandma was hospitalized, and Kang Yuan came to accompany her as soon as class was over. "I'm very good at reading the guidance sheet, and the hospital is as familiar as my home." Knowing the medical process well, when he started to be an accompanying patient consultant near the university, he started by helping the elderly for free. "Each hospital is different, and even with rich experience, I must be responsible for the patients. Helping these elderly people can allow me to accumulate experience, and helping itself is also a happy thing."

There is also a way to find customers. When Kang Yuan first wanted to enter the industry, he also considered taking orders from agencies first.

The biggest problem with agencies is that a certain reward needs to be paid, but in the end, the customer source may not be provided as expected. The general routine of agencies is: recommending the new position of an accompanying patient consultant through self-media accounts to attract inquiries. And those who come to inquire will inevitably be required to participate in the courses and obtain the certificate of an accompanying patient consultant. "There is currently no relevant management agency in the country, and no one will look at the certificate of an accompanying patient consultant when seeing a doctor. In the end, what is obtained is only the agency's pass."

After understanding, Kang Yuan chose to post his daily work as an accompanying patient consultant on his own account. At the beginning, the customers were scattered. Later, after developing multiple channels such as Xianyu, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo, he can almost guarantee that he has 2 - 3 orders a day. The hourly rate in first-tier cities allows him to live a comfortable life. His accompanying patient consulting fee is 80 yuan per hour, 450 yuan for a full-day accompaniment, 239 yuan for a half-day accompaniment, and 150 yuan for picking up and delivering medicine once.

Kang Yuan has created a differentiation by combining his personal advantages. With the identity of a biomedical major student and his personal patient companionship, he has accumulated a good reputation. Especially when he positions himself in several top tertiary hospitals in big cities, he can not only receive local patients but also come into contact with many patients from other places.

After having a stable business, Kang Yuan also began to build his own private domain economy. Among his customer groups, customers often actively pull in patients in need of help.

"Many of them come from other places to see a doctor and are not familiar with the medical process, which may cause problems in a certain place, making it impossible to see a doctor or having to postpone it. If it is postponed, staying in a hotel and eating are all costs. I help them ask or consider these in advance, and they will be much more relaxed." Kang Yuan regards the people in the group as friends. Those who need to pick up medicine regularly can form a group, and the group member discount price is 80 yuan.

Of course, there is also a downside to being an accompanying patient consultant. When asked whether he would be affected emotionally by the patients he accompanies, Kang Yuan told Workplace Bonus: "At the beginning, it would, but after seeing life and death too often, I became numb. Isn't there a saying that 'Learning medicine is to first eliminate humanity and then see great love'?" Kang Yuan has now gradually evolved to the stage of seeing great love. Sometimes when he sees an elderly person coming alone, but when their children entrust them to him, he will briefly forgive the world. "This is also another manifestation of love."

Business Administration: Applying professional knowledge, I became the boss of a sports lottery store

Xiao Wu is a post-00s who has suffered from the "dark side of the times".

She encountered the epidemic during her school years and graduated during an economic downturn and devaluation of academic qualifications. After graduating from the Business Administration major at a second-tier normal university, Xiao Wu found that she couldn't find a job.

"My classmates either continue to take the postgraduate entrance examination, the public servant examination, or the teacher recruitment examination, or simply lie at home." The school is not competitive, the major is not easy to find a job, not to mention that there are no good employment opportunities in the fifth-tier city where she is.

"If I can't be an employee, then I'll be the boss!" Xiao Wu thought of a new way out.

She set her sights on the scratch-off lottery tickets that are always popular in the mall. At that time, the lottery stores in the small county had not yet entered the crazy growth mode. Xiao Wu favored the central location on the pedestrian street. She first went to understand the store rent and learned how to open a store on short-video platforms.

In order to avoid errors in her own homework, Xiao Wu chose to directly go to the management center of the China Sports Lottery. After consultation, she clearly understood that to join the China Sports Lottery, a series of conditions need to be met, including being 18 - 55 years old, having a high school degree, and not being a public official.

After calculating whether the funds that need to be invested can be covered, she began to actively prepare various materials. After completing the steps of determining the store location, signing the contract, paying the deposit, and purchasing the equipment, Xiao Wu's lottery store opened smoothly. Excluding the subsequent operating costs such as water and electricity, she only invested 50,000 yuan in total.

Xiao Wu has her own set of business models. As a post-00s, she grew up in an information environment and naturally knows the role of online publicity. She uses social media platforms to carefully create interesting short videos and graphic content to introduce her lottery store and various lottery gameplay. By sharing the winning stories of some lucky customers, she has attracted a lot of attention. She also actively cooperates with local online celebrity bloggers for store exploration and promotion, allowing more people to learn about her store.

"We learned a lot of economics knowledge in our professional courses, and I also use it in the operation of the lottery store." She will analyze the consumption psychology and behavior patterns of customers and formulate reasonable marketing strategies: such as launching preferential activities, or giving small gifts when purchasing a certain amount of lottery tickets, and conducting discount sales during specific periods.

Xiao Wu also pays special attention to customer relationship management. In order to timely share the lottery draw information and in-store activities, she has established a customer WeChat group. She will insist on sending a red envelope for good luck in the group every day, and the customer with the best luck can scratch a "Mung Bean 7" worth 20 yuan for free.

With maintaining a good interaction with customers, Xiao Wu has gained a group of loyal customers.

Because it is a sports lottery store, not only must it be able to operate, but also understand sports, so as to better recommend lottery tickets to customers. Xiao Wu, who used to have no interest in sports, began to study various sports events more deeply. In this process, her love for sports has become stronger. She set up an event information column in the store and updates the dynamics and analysis of important competitions every day, attracting many sports enthusiasts to come for communication and discussion.

This growing love for sports has also brought more customers to Xiao Wu.

Some regular customers even gather in the store on match days to watch the live broadcast and cheer for their favorite teams. "During the European Cup, my store was crowded. There is also a fried chicken shop next to it. Eating while watching, it's a complete business closed loop!"

Seeing that the profit of the lottery store is still continuing to rise, Xiao Wu began to consider expanding the business scale.

Marketing: Searching for the glamorous imagination

Xueli, who has been deeply engaged in the field of marketing, entered a top Internet company after graduation. However, doing marketing in the Internet system makes her feel frustrated.

"The real Marketing is glamorous." Xueli, who graduated from a top university, is a true "academic school" and has always had expectations, imaginations, and love for her major. She believes that sales is an exchange of value. Aside from the stigmatization in the general sense, the teaching of the Marketing major is actually to cultivate those who can do top-level design in brand companies - although, more often we hear that the evaluation of this major is "forced to choose when studying liberal arts" and "don't know what has been learned, and the content is empty and big".

Compared with dealing with numbers, she prefers to do creative and communication work, and the Marketing major can not only cultivate her soft skills such as communication and negotiation, but also cultivate business thinking.

Her school has a more open teaching method and employment support. "After the military training in the first year of college, our first class is career planning." In the first semester of the first year, students study general courses. After the end of the semester, students can freely choose their majors and can make a personal class schedule and participate in more internships. Teachers will strongly encourage students to do internships, connect with people in the society, and participate in various competitions to communicate with more people. The school's employment center will help students revise their resumes, conduct mock interviews, and organize various activities to increase students' opportunities to deal with enterprises.

The most important gain that campus learning has brought to Xueli is the cultivation of a business thinking mode. She still feels fortunate when she recalls it now, "Many courses that cultivate soft skills seem to have no knowledge input, but they have subtly shaped an individual's business thinking. For example, being able to think more quickly about why to do a thing, the value it may bring, and the results that can be obtained after completion."

The company where Xueli is located may be an Internet giant that everyone envies, but for Xueli, who considers herself to truly love marketing, working here is like "getting on the wrong bridal sedan and marrying the wrong man". "There is no traditional Marketing in Internet enterprises, and the work there does not meet my imagination."