Recruiting in China

DESPITE tough battles to win an internship position, most university students turn out to be unsatisfied with their part-time work experience, a recent Internet survey found.

The most common problems for students were feelings of disrespect, unsuitable tasks and low payment, according to 51job.com, a Nasdaq-listed human resources service provider in China.

The company surveyed 10,663 university students and 1,800 employers in major Chinese cities about their attitudes to internships.

The survey found that the 1,800 employers filled 7,587 internships so far this year, with an average of 43 people applying for each.

However, nearly 39 percent of students surveyed said that they were not satisfied with their internship experience, a figure that is seven percentage points higher than last year's survey result.

About 43 percent of students said their internships were "so-so," while only 18 percent of respondents considered the part-time work satisfying, the survey reported.

Lack of respect was the focus of students' discontent, as more than two-thirds of students said they couldn't bear their employers' attitude to their work.

"Our manager took all our sales as his own and simply treated us as cheap labor," said You Tingting, a student who interned as a sales representative for a local ticket agency.

Unsuitable positions that have nothing to do with students' majors were another drawback.

The survey reported that only 1.4 percent of students surveyed took up internships that enhanced their professional knowledge, mostly designers, computer programmers and educational majors.

"It's nothing for students to be a delivery boy or distributing fliers. You can't expect to take a comfortable position immediately, as everybody has to start from scratch," said a human resources manager of a logistics company, who asked to remain anonymous.