The Shanghai Job Placement Center plans to offer career guidance courses to second-year university students next year, instead of only giving lectures to graduating students.

Center officials said the schedule change is meant to help young university students get an idea of the current employment situation and do their own career planning earlier.

"The key to the current difficultly university graduates face doesn't lie in the lack of sufficient job opportunities, but students simply don't have an objective assessment of their own abilities and career goals," said Song Wenling, a career consultant with the center's Putuo branch.

Starting at the end of last year, the center surveyed more than 300 university students who attended free job fairs held in three local universities about their job-seeking and career development plans.

More than 75 percent of the graduating students surveyed said that they weren't clear about their own interests, abilities, or strengths and weaknesses.

Among the surveyed, bout 35 percent of students have only vague plans for their future careers, while another 15 percent of respondents said they never thought about career planning, the survey reported.

Considering the current fierce job competition, it's necessary to help students form crisis awareness as early as possible, said Ye Xiaoqing, a center official.

Currently, free career guidance - including regular lectures after class and case-based counseling by professional consultants - is only provided to fourth-year students several months before they graduate.

(Shanghai Daily February 16, 2006)