1.Employment Status of Graduates of 2018

By the end of June 2018, the overall employment rate of the graduates of 2018 in our School rose to 98.14%, much higher than that of last year over the same period, ranking first among all the other Schools in our University, which was highly recognized.

The Career Development Center has regular one-on-one follow-up with graduates who have not yet found jobs via telephone, WeChat or face-to-face meetings, and provided them with helpful and targeted information as well as channels to find jobs, and tracked their latest progress in job-seeking. All these efforts contributed to the boost in the employment rate this year.

2. Employment Service and Career Education for Students based on the features of the discipline

We take into considerations the features of the discipline of Economics and Management and the differences between grades and majors, provided multi-level and multi-category career education with emphasis on economics and management. During our work, we adhered to the two guiding principles of “serving enterprises” and “serving students” and set “caring for the employment, growth and development of students” as the primary goal. Coordinated deployments were made in terms of career guidance, career service and the set-up of employment working groups, and we also carried out specific plans to create a better employment environment for graduates.

(1). Setting up “Pengbei Lecture” and guiding career planning

The hall is full of distinguished guests and talents – the lecture series “Pengbei Lecture” arranged by the Career Development Center is set up according to the principle of “gathering, shaping and cultivating talents”. Many eminent figures in the field of Economics and Management come to share their career experience and findings, to guide students to plan their career in a more scientific and rational way and to cultivate in them “taking everything under your control, and always aspiring to exceed your limits”. The activity is more than a bridge connecting career and curriculum, but a starting point for students’ career development and a spiritual heritage to “Tongji people” who share weal and woe together.

Since the activity started in November 2017, our School has already invited thirteen outstanding figures in relevant fields to give speeches in the “Pengbei Lecture hall”. The platform provided by “Pengbei Lecture” has brought lectures on the special topic – students’ career development, which bettered their understanding of career planning, encouraged them to know more about majors and to be more willing to choose one, while at the same time, enabled them to have a clearer mind when planning their career development in the future.

Table 1   Lecture schedule for “Pengbei Lecture” in the first half of year 2018

Time	Theme	Guests
2018.03.20	A high-level overview of workplace by HR Executives from “World Top 100 enterprises”	Elaine Lo, global HR Director from “world’s top 100 enterprises”: the American headquarter of Motorola, Rockwell and Ingersoll Rand in Asia-Pacific regions
2018.04.17	Grant Thornton: Joining hands with those interested in  entering into the accounting sector	Warren Clark, China-based Partner of Grant Thornton
2018.05.04	The Supply Chain of “Chinese chip” by Philips’ executives in China:	Kang Yi, General Manager of Philips Medical Technological (China) Equipment Supply Chain Management Co.,Ltd
2018.06.05	Lectures on Science and Scientific Research by Professor Liang Jian	Liang Jian, deputy dean of Institute for Advanced Study of Management, Tongji University, Professor, Ph.D supervisor

 

Picture 1  Elaine Lo gave speech at “Pengbei Lecture” on March 20^th, 2018

Picture 2 Mr.Warren Clark at “Pengbei Lecture” on April 17th, 2018

Picture 3 Mr.Kang Yi at “Pengbei Lecture” on May 4th, 2018

Picture 4 Professor Liang Jian at “Pengbei Lecture” on June 5th, 2018

(2). Hosting case competition and improving students’ capability

On April 20th, Tongji University successfully held the Eighth Huawei Financial Elite Challenge Competition.

The Competition aims to provide a professional arena for students majoring in finance globally to compete with each other on their financial skills. Since the competition started in 2011, it has been improving its design in four dimensions – “professional depth, real case practice, communication platform and global perspective”, in an effort to develop it into an attractive campus competition which draws most attention and brings a sense of achievement for those majoring in business. Tongji campus elimination rounds were co-hosted by the Career Development Center and the Department of Accounting in our School. The judging panel was composed of Mr. Guan Jufeng, Financial Controller of Huawei Co., Mr. You Hongpo and Professor Bai Yunxia, head of the Department of Accounting. Altogether 105 students in 20 teams signed up for the competition. After the first round of case study, five teams entered the second round to compete for the first prize. The round was divided into two parts, and the teams gave presentation, answered judges’ questions and confronted each other using real business cases. Their professional capabilities, flexibility, quick response and teamwork were all highly recognized by the judges.

Three judges gave impressive comments after all teams finished the final round. Mr. You Hongpo praised students’ in-depth analysis of the cases and advised them to train their logical expression and to utilize school days to master professional knowledge; Mr. Guan Jufeng stressed the importance of cherishing time, learning theoretical knowledge and keeping updated with the development of industry and enterprises, and he hoped that students could bear curiosity and sense of responsibility to explore the truth of all things and analyze things from different perspectives even after the competition; Professor Bai Yunxia encouraged students to keep exploring questions and not to be limited to the data at hand, but to take a global perspective, to analyze the changes of situations at home and abroad in depth. She hoped that students could master the knowledge in textbooks and analyze cases more carefully, and aspire to perfection no matter what they do.

After fierce competition, team “Crazyou” from our School won the Champion in the elimination contest held in Tongji, and will attend the competition in East China Region on behalf of our University. Team “Oriental Pearl” and “Unity for winning” won the second and the third prize respectively. Ma Yixuan and Li Zhanpeng in our School were awarded the Best Individual Performance Prize. Team “Crazyou” consists of four members: Ma Yixuan, undergraduate of 2014 majoring in Finance, as the team leader, Liao Xiaohui and Ning Jingzhiyuan from our School and Huang Yuhao from the School of Civil Engineering. Huawei Financial Elite Challenge Competition provided a stage for students to show their talents and improve themselves, and cultivated students’ spirit of teamwork and flexibility.

Picture 4 Professor Liang Jian at “Pengbei Lecture” on June 5th, 2018

Mr. Hong Youpo, Financial Controller of Huawei Co.(Left 1), Professor Bai Yunxia, head of the Department of Accounting (Left 2), Mr. Guan Jufeng, Financial Controller of Huawei Co.(Right 1)

(3). Assisting enterprises’ recruitment and hosting campus recruitment campaigns

Apart from assisting the University to hold Recruitment Fair, our School has helped as many as 88 enterprises to hold recruitment events during the first half of this year, including Spring Recruitment & Summer Internship Fair for Graduates, Special Recruitment Fair targeting graduates majoring in Economics and Management in renowned universities and organized by Lujiazui Financial City, Recruitment Fair for Management Trainees by Shanghai Municipal Engineering for Urban Construction Co.,Ltd., Spring Recruitment Fair in East China region by Huafa Industrial Share, EY Summer Leadership Training Campus Recruitment, etc. Our School endeavors to serve as a bridge connecting enterprises and students to help enterprises find talents and help students choose jobs most suitable to them.

Two large-scale recruitment fairs were as follows

Table 2 Campus recruitment by Career Development Center in the first half of 2018

Number	Time	Theme	Notes
1	2018.03.28	Special recruitment fair organized by Lujiazui Financial City, targeting graduates majoring in Economics and Management in renowned universities	27 high-quality enterprises in Lujiazui
2	2018.04.27	2018 Spring Recruitment & Summer Internship Fair for graduates majoring in Economics and Management	50 high-quality national enterprises

 

First, special Recruitment Fair organized by Lujiazui Financial city, targeting graduates majoring in Economics and Management in renowned universities

The recruitment fair was held in the afternoon of March 28th, in the hall on the second floor of Tongji Building A. Altogether 27 famous enterprises in Lujiazui attended the fair, including China Jinmao Co.,Ltd, Shengang Securities Co.,Ltd, Fullgoal Fund Management Co.,Ltd, Bank of China Limited Shanghai Branch, Taiping Life Insurance Co.,Ltd, EBF Co.,Ltd, etc., and a total of 133 posts were offered, covering fields as securities, fund, banks, futures, new finance and so on.

Picture 6&7 Special Recruitment Fair organized by Lujiazui Financial city, targeting graduates majoring in Economics and Management in renowned universities held on March 28th, 2018

Second, 2018 Spring recruitment & Summer internship fair for graduates majoring in Economics and Management

On April 27th, the 2018 Spring recruitment & Summer internship fair for graduates majoring in Economics and Management was successfully hosted by our School in Tongji Building A. Around 50 enterprises attended the fair, including Shenwan Hongyuan Securities, China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Co., Ltd, CR Land, Gemdale, Greenland and Hewitt Associates Inc, all of which were well-known in their respective fields of securities, insurance, real estate, consulting, logistics and so on. The recruitment fair offered posts and summer internship for graduates and under-graduate students.

The Career Development Center of our School sent out the invitations to enterprises through its official WeChat account and eligible enterprises received confirmation letter after registration and qualification audit.

Picture 8&9&10&11 Spring recruitment & Summer internship fair for Tongji graduates majoring in Economics and Managment held on April 27th, 2018

(4) Organizing the vocational training camps and improving their communication skills in the workplace

Tongji University’s youth (University students) vocational training camp, which is sponsored by the Shanghai Yangpu District Employment Promotion Center, is a project under the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. In April and May, 2018, Tongji’s Employment Guidance Center and Tongji SEM’s Vocational Development Center jointly organized two courses aimed at improving the students’ comprehensive ability to look for and choose jobs, promoting employment and enhancing employment quality. 60 undergraduates and graduate students from SEM attended the course.

The course consists of 4 modules and 16 classes: resume, interviews, personal image and etiquette. The teachers are either from famous universities, senior job-seeking instructors or well-known enterprises’ HR, and their teaching combines both theories and practices. Courses are free for students. Through learning self-management courses such as communication, etiquette and personal image management in job hunting, students can master the basic methods of self – management, improve their ability in this respect and other general skills, as well as enhance their confidence in job hunting.

Picture 12 Students are having classes in vocational training camps

(5) Establishing an internship base and promoting the cooperation between SEM and the Yandu base

SEM signed a cooperation agreement with Yandu district in Yancheng to give full play to respective resource advantages. SEM will develop programs including educational training, project consultation and technical guidance to help Yandu carry out the internship project. SEM will send outstanding students to further study in the base while Yandu will provide bases for educational practice, innovation and entrepreneurship. The two sides signed the Yandu District of Yancheng and SEM of Tongji Personnel Training Cooperation Agreement, and established “Yancheng National High-tech Zone (Tongji University ) Personnel workshop” and “Tongji University ( Yancheng National High-tech Zone ) Student Internship Base”. The project marks the establishment of a cooperation between SEM and the Yandu base featuring “complementary advantages, equal cooperation, mutual benefit and common development”, the gradual formation of an effective mechanism of “all-round, deep-level and multi-form” cooperation between SEM and the base as well as the combination of industry, teaching and research.

(6) Holding the experience sharing meeting for major-choosing and answering questions online for freshmen

Freshmen are struggling with many questions when choosing majors. For this reason, we held experience-sharing meetings to help them choose major. We invited 19 outstanding undergraduates, postgraduates and doctor students to answer freshmen’s questions online. The senior students provided a week-long consultation to help the freshmen have an in-depth understanding of courses and faculties of various majors. More than 100 undergraduates in SEM attended the meeting

Table 3 Agenda of online major-choosing consultation meetings for freshmen

Order	Date	Content
1	2018.03.26	Consultation on Accounting
2	2018.03.27	Consultation on Marketing
3	2018.03.28	Consultation on Information Management and Administrative Management
4	2018.03.29	Consultation on Logistics Management and Engineering Management
5	2018.04.01	Consultation on Finance and International Economy and Trade

 

Picture 13 A chat screenshot of online major-choosing consultation meetings

(The third question: will accounting continue to exist in the future?
AI is developing very fast, how do you see the future of accounting? In undergraduate study, what kind of knowledge should we possess? What are the advantages and disadvantages for further study and employment for this major? As AI is gradually replacing basic accounting, what are our advantages if our courses remains unchanged?)

(7) Setting up the micro-course platform for online training

Freshmen are struggling with many questions when choosing majors. For this reason, we held experience-sharing meetings to help them choose major. We invited 19 outstanding undergraduates, postgraduates and doctor students to answer freshmen’s questions online. The senior students provided a week-long consultation to help the freshmen have an in-depth understanding of courses and faculties of various majors. More than 100 undergraduates in SEM attended the meeting

So far, there are 300 micro-courses on the platform, covering personal career development, workplace competence enhancement and office skills improvement, etc. The courses involve various fields, including target management, innovative thinking, leadership, Internet marketing, team management, enterprise coaching, stress management, self-management, law, action learning, office software, big data, ACCA and so on.

3.Straightening out employment procedures and compiling employment manuals

Our university straightened out employment and household registration procedures including source-checking of graduates, examination and verification of graduate registration forms, employment recommendation forms, graduate whereabouts and tripartite arrangement, application and issuing of reports for duty card, declaration of household registration, handling procedures for graduation, etc. Beside these, we also compiled manuals like Tongji SEM Employment Manual, Tongji SEM Undergraduate Employment Procedure Manual, Tongji SEM Postgraduate Employment Procedure Manual, Tongji SEM Doctoral Graduate Employment Procedure Manual, Filling and Notice of Undergraduate Registration Form, Instruction on Registration Form for Undergraduates and Doctoral Graduates, Instruction on Online Entry of Information on Graduate Further Education at Home and Abroad, Procedures of SEM Graduate Political Examination and File Transfer, etc. An electronic edition of all these manuals was sent out to all graduates for more convenient, clearer and smoother graduation procedures.

4. Encouraging graduates to work in western areas and grass-root units for key positions

Leaders in our School attached great importance to the Green Pine Plan, and Career Development Center mobilized graduates in accordance with their specific situation. For all graduates, the Career Development Center held symposiums to introduce the country’s policies; for central and western graduates, it mobilized them one by one and encourages them to combine their own career development with the country’s strategy to serve the country better.

Thanks to the promotion and guidance, 11 graduates (1 undergraduate, 6 postgraduates and 4 doctoral graduates) won Sail Award and were named during the commencement. Their names are in the following table.

5. Sending students as interns to international organizations through global programs

Doctoral candidate Hou Yanting in our School applied for participation in the UNESCO’s internship project of “International Task Force on Teachers” in April, 2018. Through the School’s career development center, she has applied for financial aid from Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and she will be informed of the examination and approval result at the end of 2018.

Our School sent students as interns to international organizations through global programs. Specific measures were as follows:

First, we highly emphasized various means of publicity. To further internationalize our school and broaden students’ global horizon, we held various activities including employment meetings, head teacher working meetings and counselor meetings, giving publicity to and emphasizes how significant the internship in international organizations is to national development and individual career development. We also made arrangements for students to take internship in international organizations.

Second, we used the Internet and other means to ensure students’ accessibility to internship information. We adopted various means to publish internship information from international organizations, including WeChat subscription account of SEM Career and Development Association, class WeChat group, employment WeChat group, etc.

Third, we used one-on-one mobilization. We chose qualified students for the internship based on the requirements of international organizations, and mobilized these students one by one.

6. Improving employment quality through investigating graduate employment quality

To further improve graduate employment quality, we offered to solve problems with employment and career development, and listened to opinions and suggestions from students.

Following measures are adopted for statistics of the massive data about graduate employment:

First, we used SEM Microlecture platform for survey and statistics. Not only did this platform help to design and publish questionnaires, it also provided students with QR code, a means for online signing up for offline activities.

Second, we used Internet and IT to conduct surveys and gather data. Online survey platforms like “Questionnaire Star” and “Golden Finger” were adopted to gather information. Students could directly open the online questionnaire on WeChat. Internet and information technologies can easily overcome the challenged caused by the big number of graduates.
Third, we set up triple-tier contact mechanism for graduate employment: teachers-class contact person-graduates. Corresponding WeChat groups were set up under each tier, which was helpful for collecting data.

Fourth, we classified gradates in advance. Based on the classifications of postgraduate education, going abroad and employment, we regularly and tracked and input information on where students go after graduation. We launched the work of collecting the information before students graduate from the university, which is beneficial for subsequent information gathering and analysis.

Our School is now investigating graduate employment quality, and will release a quality report soon.

7. Improving the professional capabilities of staff in charge of employment development and guidance

Teachers related to graduate employment work participated in training of career development inside and outside the university, so as to improve their ability to give career suggestions and to provide better guidance, helping and caring for every student.

Table 4: Course of Career Training in the First Half of 2018

Number	Date	Content	Organization
1	2018.4.20-22	Workshop of Career Ethics	BeisenEdu (Beijing) Inc.
2	2018.03.21	Training for Work Related to 2018 Graduate Employment	Employment Guidance Center of Tongji University
3	2018.04.04	Sail Together—Latest Guidance for Underprivileged School Students in Taiwan	Employment Guidance Center of Tongji University
4	2018.04.12	How to Run and Manage a WeChat Subscription Account—Miss Xiang Meiling from Guidance and Service Center for Student Employment of Central South University	Employment Guidance Center of Tongji University
5	2018.06.21-23	Training for Instructors of career guidance and planning	Employment Guidance Center of Tongji University

 

8. Paying more attention to students with employment difficulties, and offering help

We pay more attention to students with employment difficulties. Through more than 20 times of one-on-one guidance, teachers in charge of graduate employment work learn about students’ confusion, and give them guidance to treat and deal with employment pressure and find a suitable job. The teachers suggest that graduates should have a good attitude in every interview and constantly improve their comprehensive capability. They also recommend suitable jobs in light of the capabilities of students with employment difficulties.

For those with employment difficulties, we set up a WeChat group named “Job Recommendations for Specific Students”. Through this group, we publish individualized employment information and tried our best to reimburse their travel expenses in job-hunting.