Spring recruitment is in full swing, and post-2000 college students have paid job-seeking consultations.
Zhang Yuan, a senior student at a university in Guangdong, found in the process of selecting planners for consultation that there seemed to be no uniform industry norms in the field of "career planning consultation".
"Everyone is like a newcomer who has just entered the industry, and the price is also very different, from more than a dozen yuan to tens of thousands of yuan."
On Zhihu, under the question "Is there any reliable online career counseling?", some netizens replied: "I want to do online career planning consultation, but when the price was quoted, it was almost 9,000 yuan, and I was even more confused."
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, there will be 11.58 million college graduates in 2023, an increase of 850,000 from last year.
In the confusion and anxiety of employment, some college students choose to seek help from career planning consultation.
Can you find the right job by spending money on consulting?
Most career counseling planners accept counseling directly in their own names
Most college students looking for commercial career counseling plans come from the "grass planting" of social media.
"Big data" seems to be able to glimpse the user's life state.
Wang Feifei came across related posts when recruiting in the autumn of 2022.
At that time, she was facing the "dilemma" of "no response to resume delivery, frequent brushing of first-time interviews, and failure to find an internship", and "would wonder whether she had chosen the wrong track in the dead of night."
After seeing the headline "Ten years of experience in human resources management, helping you solve unemployment confusion, promotion and salary increase", Wang Feifei was moved, and then privately messaged the blogger in the background to seek career counseling help.
The reporter learned that not all career planning consultants on social media are psychological consultants.
Their resumes are more marked with keywords such as "senior human resource management, senior artificial intelligence engineer, ten years of investment banking experience".
The services provided by these career counseling planners not only include strategic content such as career counseling and career route planning, but also provide services such as interview counseling and resume revision; some career planning consultants claim that they have rich industry resources.
According to the reporter's understanding, most career counseling planners on social platforms do not rely on an intermediary platform as a guarantee, but directly accept consultations in their own names.
The price varies accordingly according to the content of the service.
The quotations given by a career consultant on a social platform are divided into three levels: 99 yuan, 399 yuan and 899 yuan.
99 yuan is the price for a 30-minute micro-consultation experience, 399 yuan is the price for a one-on-one 90-minute normal consultation, and 899 yuan is the price for a long-distance accompanying consultation, including three 90-minute one-on-one formal consultations.
There are also career planning consultants who set prices according to the service content. For example, "personality mining + career exploration" is 499 yuan, "autumn recruiting + job matching + interview guidance" is 600 yuan, and "industry analysis + market analysis + personal interview strategy" is 900 yuan. Yuan.
At the same time, its graphic promotional content includes "Career planning consultation is suitable for people who are confused, anxious, low-paid or in debt in life and want to give themselves a chance."
And mentioned: "Many of our clients who have changed careers, from a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan to a monthly salary of 8,000 yuan, are countless."
Wang Feifei and the consultant communicated three times in accordance with the relevant procedures of Holland's career interest test.
During this process, Wang Feifei received an employment notice from a foreign company.
"The moment I received the recruitment call, I felt that I was no longer confused." Wang Feifei said that the consultant discussed with her at that time and believed that she belonged to an entrepreneurial personality.
"Compared with the position being hired."
She ended the planning consultation early.
"Worried that if I work hard in the wrong direction, I will go further and further away"
Zhang Yuan was looking for a "reliable" career planning consultant on social platforms, and his budget was 1,000 yuan.
"As a student, you can't afford higher prices."
"I have learned a lot, but I don't have in-depth expertise." Zhang Yuan's undergraduate major is business administration, and when he is about to graduate, he finds that his major seems to "do anything".
"I want to find a path that suits me through this consultation, and then work hard in the right direction."
Zhang Yuan originally planned to go to graduate school first and then get a job.
He believes that postgraduate study can bring him richer professional accumulation, and there is also a certain "buffer period" for career choice.
After preparing for half a year, I didn't expect that "on the second day of the postgraduate entrance examination, I got positive (new coronavirus infection)".
The exam status is not good, and Zhang Yuan feels that there is little hope of "going ashore" this year.
Failure to pass the postgraduate entrance examination means that employment is imminent.
"I know more about related occupations through external experience, such as the work experience told by my brothers and sisters and Internet information." Zhang Yuan was not prepared for employment before, and he did not know what career he was really suitable for.
"I have been participating in debate competitions during the winter and summer vacations, and I have no time for internships." During the limited time at school, Zhang Yuan devoted almost all of his free time to club activities.
"For me, only by really engaging in a career that I am interested in can I have the motivation to continue." Zhang Yuan hopes that his future work will allow him to perform as fully as he does in a debate competition.
"After determining the suitable career direction, I hope that the consultant can help me make a specific plan on this general path." At the same time, Zhang Yuan hopes to learn about relevant industry information directly through career planning consultation, and asks a career planning consultant to help me He tailors a career path.
"I also want to know through this consultation whether I really need the title of graduate student." At present, Zhang Yuan has not yet determined whether he will take the postgraduate entrance examination for World War II.
Li Wei studied at a university in Dalian majoring in ship engineering, and entered the second semester of his junior year at the beginning of the spring semester.
Under the original training system, they had to go to the shipyard for professional practice in the first semester of their junior year.
However, from the end of 2021 to the end of 2022, Li Wei's school and his hometown had successive outbreaks of epidemics. He stayed at home and took online classes for a year, and his offline practice became online teaching.
"I don't know what the real work experience of the major I am currently studying is like." Li Wei told reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that there is no "internship" as an opportunity for trial and error. go further.
Li Weixue originally wanted to apply for "vehicle engineering" as a major, but he chose "ship engineering" by mistake. He wanted to choose whether to inter-professional postgraduate entrance examination or get a job after his internship in his junior major.
However, in the college years during the epidemic, online classes, home stay, and health check-in are the norm.
"It is difficult to freely enter and leave the campus, let alone offline internships." Li Wei said helplessly.
Not only is it impossible to participate in professional internships, but there are also very few opportunities for ordinary internships.
"During the interview, the employer's first question is whether I can work offline." Li Wei submitted a lot of resumes, but most of them went nowhere.
"My cousin had a lot of internship opportunities when she was in college, and she basically experienced all the industries she was interested in. So she determined her career direction when she graduated from college."
Li Wei, who has no internship experience, feels very confused about his future.
Now, Li Wei is faced with the choice of "employment or further education". Which industry should he go to for employment?
Which major should I study for further studies?
He fell into choice anxiety, and currently hopes that career planning consultation can bring "the right answer."
"I feel that consultants outside the school are more distracted"
It is understood that both Li Wei and Zhang Yuan's universities offer career planning and consulting courses.
"Maybe because it is a secondary school, the content is a little perfunctory and not particularly useful." Zhang Yuan said that he felt that the teacher was talking about some "reasons", and he needed customized personal consulting services.
Psychological counselors in the school can provide career planning consulting services to students in school.
"My classmates said that the effect was not very good after the consultation." Li Wei did not trust the quality of the school's psychological counselors. "Employment anxiety" needs to be resolved immediately, otherwise "you won't be able to cheer up and do other things."
In the end, Li Wei made an appointment with a national second-level psychological counselor who is good at career counseling through a certain psychological counseling platform. The fee is 500 yuan per session, which is expected to last for 3 times. The consultation is currently in progress.
Different from the psychological counseling sought by Li Wei, Zhang Yuanhe stressed that the counseling he chose was career planning counseling, not psychological counseling.
In Zhang Yuan's view, career planning consulting services can not only help consultants form a clear, integrated, and appropriate self-concept and find a career direction, but also help consultants integrate industry information, clarify professional skills, and even make key nodes career decisions.
And these are services that the school's psychological counselors are absolutely unable to provide.
Zhang Yuan has his own set of criteria to select career planning consultants.
"The first step is to see if the consultation process they arranged for me is professional; the second is to see their service attitude, if I still have doubts about some issues, see if they will provide 'after-sales service'; the third is See if the advice they provide me is based on, whether it is the result of their investigation and data demonstration."
Zhang Yuan told reporters that compared with these three points, whether a consultant has a license or qualification is not what he values most.
"I think consultants' services to people must be differentiated, and certificates cannot measure the professional level of consultants."
Some also opt for on-campus counseling.
In May 2022, Qi Ze, a graduate of a media university in Beijing, struggled for a long time when choosing an offer. Should he choose a major Internet company with a high salary but he doesn’t like it that much, or an advertising company with a low salary but a “dream”?
She chose to seek help from the school's psychological counselor. After five consecutive career planning consultations, Qi Ze truly understood her needs for work and the distribution of her abilities.
"During the consultation process, the consultant gradually guided me to truly see my hobbies and career needs by asking questions." Qi Ze recalled that in the end, she chose an advertising company.
"The advice given by the consultant is to look at career choices in the long run."
(At the request of the interviewees, Li Wei, Zhang Yuan, and Wang Feifei are pseudonyms)
China Youth Daily·China Youth Net trainee reporter Wang Xueer Source: China Youth Daily