“Sailing through the Winds and Waves” in the Employment Season—A Record of the Job Hunter Failing in Applying for University ()
1. Research Background
Society has an increasing requirement for talents, so more and more vocational college students’ primary task is to upgrade qualification after entering college. The entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate courses of general higher education is one of the ways to upgrade the academic degree in higher vocational education. The admission object is only limited to be the excellent full-time fresh graduates in vocational college, and they would be awarded a certificate of bachelor degree after the graduation. Those who meet correspondent conditions would be awarded with a diploma, marking with a “full-time”. Hence, there is a high recognition and practicability in society. In the late May of each year, there is a ranking of the fresh students of “entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate course of general higher education” issued by ordinary universities in Shanghai. Taking the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology for example, 519 students had applied for the examination in 2021, while 135 of them could be admitted by the university with the proportion of application and admission of 26%, which meant that most college students needed to bear the dual pressure of being failed in the examination and employment.
2. Case Analysis
Student A was a fresh graduate of 2021 majoring in art at a vocational college. The student had devoted herself to the entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate courses of general higher education; however, she got failed in the fierce competition. 2021, the rate of university admission was higher in the department, so she felt anxious and upset when knowing that other classmates in the same major have received the notification of admission or the offer from enterprises. The student grew up in a single-parent family, so she was introverted with poor communication and weak pressure resistance. At last, the student found a job in the company which is the partnership of the vocational college with the help of a tutor, and she turned to be self-confident gradually and prepared for the self-study examination. Her life was back to the normal way gradually. In this case, student A after failing in the examination has serious employment psychology problems, and it is mainly shown in the following aspects:
1) The COVID-19 makes employment harder. Currently, many enterprises in the field of economy in our country are in depression. For the consideration of broadening sources of income and reducing expenditure, some enterprises choose to have a layoff and production shutdown. There is an imbalance between supply and demand in the labor market, and the vast idle labor force finds no job, which should be “adding insult to injury” for the fresh graduates of vocational colleges with a lower academic degree. Student A has been failed many times during job hunting. She submits resumes nervously and hurriedly, but no one accepts them. The negation of herself, pessimism about the future and bad psychological state imposes a further negative impact on the job hunting of the student.
For the circumstance, as an academic tutor, I analyzed the specific current employment situation for her to help the student build up a self-confidence of successful employment, striving to find out the good chance of successful employment in the severe situation. On the other hand, the employment guidance center of the college had opened several “propaganda meetings” to interpret the latest employment policies, laws and regulations and the relevant favored policies issued by the country to push employment. At the same time, to prevent students from the employment risk, the college also lectured the knowledge on the signing and termination of employment agreements and labor contracts, “five insurance and one reserve fund”, graduate file and others, so as to help them know about the social employment demand and employment situation and reasonably customize the job-hunting expectation and strategy. In addition, the department arranged our academic tutor to have profound guidance of the specific-job training, graduation practice, graduation design and student employment these four parts through opening “Phoenix Plan” employment advancing meeting, aiming at achieving the overall working pattern that all faculties had a joint grasp and management.
2) Character defect caused by the original family. In the current society, divorce is a social phenomenon. The offspring from divorced families have been a highlight of the mass as a new social group. As a result, their character, social adaptation and others would be affected to some extent. The specific behaviors are having no trust in others, having no active communication with others, relying on mobile phones, locking themselves in their own world and being indifferent to everything around them. Student A is the typical representative of the group.
During the preparation for the examination, student A chose the most competitive state-owned university as her goal. On one hand, I encouraged her to focus on the study “without any unnecessary ideas in her mind”, striving to consolidate the foundation and trying to make a pertinent struggle. On the other hand, I positively planned the sharing meeting of entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate course of general higher education. I invited the senior students in the same discipline to come back to college to share the experience of applying for university, choosing discipline, preparation of tests, psychological adjustment before examination and learning methods, hoping for pushing a good study style construction in the form of “peer leadership”. Student A majored in general design in the vocational college while the contents of the examination were sketched, which was a little bit torturing for student A without solid basic skills. After the announcement of the score, student A’s struggle was shown in the painting, while she was failed in the examination because the other professional course did not pass the qualified standard. Thereafter, I encouraged student A to take part in the college and municipal recruitment meeting with resumes. The student did not dare to make a self-introduction but just “submitted” the resume simply due to the introversion; it turned out that she gained no feedback from enterprises and turned to be more and more anxious. She even rejected to communicate with any classmate.
After knowing about it, I had a heart-to-heart talk with student A with a chance of dormitory inspection. For nearly three years, student A would trust in me. During the conversation, I learned that the student could not ventilate the psychological pressure from the family and expectations by herself. After talking with student A, I actively called her parent and timely informed the parent of the status of the student, wishing that the parent could be the biggest support for her within the power. Concurrently, I encouraged her to face life positively and cultivate the spirit of self-improvement, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-love with a good attitude towards frustration. In addition, the academic tutor, class head and tutor of “Phoenix Plan” formed a help group to enhance the education of students’ world outlook, outlook on life and values. We wished that the student would not be immersed in the failure for the current situation and fight with difficulties bravely so as to consciously adjust the expectation during the period of choosing a career according to her career choosing ability and the actual situation of the society, which would practically help her overcome the psychological barriers to employment in the mind to achieve the employment smoothly (Liu, 2021).
3) Lack of working experience and occupational skills. Student A came from the major education province in the Yangtze River delta, so she was admitted by the vocational college for the failure of the entrance examination to college and university. Before entering the college, she had set the entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate course of general higher education as the goal of learning plan in the next three years. With the help of the “one student one policy” file set by the employment guidance center of college and the course of Career Life Planning, student A had had primary planning for further career direction for the first time. The competition of employment ability of college students is shown in the competition of comprehensive qualification to great extent. Due to the different living environment, cultural environment, family background and education conditions, most the students with the unsatisfactory original family would come to realize the gap with others in professional knowledge, social information, specialty and practical skills, interpersonal skills and organizational skills. Hence, student A would spend a vast of time pursuing excellent academic performance to make up for the psychological inferiority due to financial constraints. During the three years in the college, she had acquired two occupational certificates, but she had no social practice due to the defective character and the shortage in interpersonal communication, oral expression, communication and coordination and adaptability caused by the insufficient social activities. Under many circumstances, the certificate is just “a stepping stone” to one industry, so the ability must be weakened without long-term practice. The only “learning-testing for certificate” and the lack of working experience exposes her to the shortage in the aspect of practical ability.
For the situation, the whole college formed a working pattern of “entering ‘enterprise’ to push ‘employment’”. The college leaders, department leaders and student secretaries in charge of student job had led a team to visit enterprises, and the deans of teaching and research offices of all disciplines would contact employers, striving to transform the “passive” waiting to be “positive” acting. To recommend student A, we should find a company and market in need of a labor force. Therefore, each dean of teaching and research office actively contacted the correspondent companies of all disciplines and enhanced the connection with alumni to mobilize the people from all walks to create working opportunities for students. In the form of providing employment information from multiple parties, we turn the opinion from “waiting for the job” to “finding a job”. It was really practical and effective, and student A could get employment from a company with a partnership of the college.
3. Conclusion and Reflection
1) How to do well in the employment work for graduates under the epidemic is the highlight that each college and university cares about the most. The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought shocks to a different degree to many industries in the domestic society and economy, and the shock inevitably arouses the shrinking number of jobs in the job market. Under the situation, the stable employment attitude and the continuous strengthening of the core competitive power is the key. Student A was in an unstable attitude after the failure of the examination and the continuous failures in the job-hunting process almost drove her to go collapse. However, she should have a self-consolidation under such a situation instead of losing self-confidence for trapped in a dilemma. She should seek opportunities based on a clear cognition of the situation; at the same time, she should keep enhancing her own technical level and have a lower job hunting standard when necessary to flexible design the employment direction instead of focusing on a certain post, so as to find the optimal job in the ceaseless trials. Furthermore, there should be a full play of the role of an academic tutor. In daily class management, the tutor should open themed meeting regularly. Students’ psychological state is in the most undulatory at this moment, so tutor should master the good chance to make them keep a clear cognition on the development of industry and discipline and set up goal timely to take actual action, striving to gain the “invitation card” of the workplace as early as possible.
2) How to enhance the mental health education for the students from unsatisfactory original families to reduce their possibility to have mental health problems is an inevitable problem for cultivation jobs. At present, there are a higher proportion of the students from unsatisfactory original families among the group of college students with psychological disorders in vocational colleges. Enhancing the mental health education for these students, especially the one during the employment period, has been extremely important (Jia, 2021). Due to the family, students, like A, would be apt to trap in the dilemma of thinking. Therefore, colleges and universities should keep improving the five-level mental health education network system. There should be special files for students from divorced families, and each conversation should be recorded. Meanwhile, we should seek cooperation from parents positively to have a profound understanding of the students’ thinking and psychological status when choosing careering from multiple channels. The diversified psychological counseling activities could be carried out through the moments, Bilibili, Douyin and other software, so as to encourage students to expand their friend circles and ventilate their hard feeling through all methods. We should help students have a sound mind and overcome difficulty to embrace the door of the workplace with a positive and positive attitude.
3) The core of graduates’ occupational skills to match the post demand is that college students should have a full understanding of coping with different posts with correspondent skills (Li & Du, 2015). After the failure of the entrance examination for vocational college to undergraduate course of general higher education, student A was lack of certain career planning and the resume submitted by her was not pertinent. To solve the contradiction, we need to guide the college students to think about their career path at the beginning of the study to confirm the career development plan as earlier as possible, and they should also improve their occupational skills based on it. Under the real situation of the more refining social distribution and the more highlighted students’ characteristics, the course of Career Life Planning and the explanation of employment procedures are insufficient. Such a real situation provides the more accurate requirement on the employment guidance work for students in college and universities.
Firstly, enhance the connection with alumni to mobilize people from all walks to create working opportunities for students. Secondly, teachers should seize the right time to have publicity for graduates with such opportunities of business trip and meeting. Thirdly, burry the employment with the opportunity of social practice. The annual student social practice is also a good employment opportunity. College should strive to build up order cultivation, joint schooling with enterprises, specific-job training and other long-term mechanisms of college-enterprise cooperation. Companies should shoulder certain professional teaching missions to subsidize or reward students to complete their studies. College cultivates students according to the working demand of companies. With the combination of social practice and students’ internships and the direct connection with companies, there would be a mutual understanding between companies and students to lay a foundation for future employment. In addition, during the learning period of students, the students take part in the post-training of the company with the guidance of college and company, and the company should give proper salary for the students to solve the living expense in the college. Then, students go to the company after graduation to effectively solve the economic stress and the job-hunting problem after graduation; meanwhile, it would narrow the supply and demand differences between college and enterprises to achieve the “three-winning” among college, enterprise and student.
The employment of college students has always been a topic of common concern, which requires the joint efforts of the whole society. From the national level, we need to introduce corresponding support policies to improve the employment environment; From the perspective of colleges and universities, it is urgent to strengthen employment guidance to help students adapt to pressure; From the family level, we should establish the employment concept of keeping pace with the times and give children enough psychological support to deal with the pressure; The most important thing is that we should learn to maintain a good attitude and face it bravely no matter how difficult it is to find a job.