AfterCollege was pleased to host a delegation of Chinese university career counselors and representatives from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China on November 4th. The group of twelve Chinese education officials and university career counselors came to the U.S. at the invitation of the U.S. Department of Education to learn about university-level career counseling and workforce development.
This was the second visit by a Chinese delegation after an earlier one in April (I assume we did a good job on the first one).
As access to higher education expands in China, more and more college graduates need employment. The country is also moving from an “assignment” system where students were assigned jobs by school authorities, to a system similar to that of the U.S. where college grads find their own employment. The career counseling profession in China is still in its infancy, which has prompted this series of delegations. The delegations are managed under a program of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
Here are some of the things I learned from the Chinese delegates:
1) China looking at a de-centralized career services model
Even though career services are still in their infancy, the Chinese understand that students are more prone to going to their departments for career guidance versus a central career placement office. As a result, the Chinese are contemplating a model where employers go to a central placement office but students are served at the department-level by career counselors at each department.
2) The Chinese are data-driven
The presentation we provided focused on the AfterCollege approach and also included findings from AfterCollege and third-party research on job seeker job search trends. The delegation enjoyed looking at the research findings, and focused the majority of their questions on the data we provided. They value arguments backed by numbers and base their strategies accordingly.
3) AfterCollege was the only non-governmental and non-university stop on the trip
The Chinese delegation visited various federal and state education and workforce-related agencies as well as university career placement offices. They were also interested in our approach of filling a gap at universities by providing students and professors with additional job search-related tools.
We were honored by the delegation’s visit and by the fact that they see the value of our model and how it can be incorporated into the Chinese career placement system. It’s not often that we can be a part of the planning process for such a large undertaking and we are flattered that China is looking to emulate AfterColleges’ model.
View the presentation below:
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