Young volunteers hope the skills they have picked up at the Expo can give them an edge in China's notoriously competitive job market.[Xinhua]

There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for those Expo volunteers who have been lucky enough to land jobs by means of networking or job fairs, writes Yu Ran.

The Private Enterprise Pavilion has launched a series of job fairs for graduate volunteers at the Expo, most of whom will find themselves out of work on Oct 31 when the six-month event ends.

China's job market is notoriously competitive, which is one of the reasons why the organizers behind these fairs decided to repay the volunteers by giving their job-hunting a boost, said Zhang Lin, the pavilion's executive president.

"Considering that our graduate volunteers will have difficulty finding jobs after the Expo, we launched a recruitment scheme in September among private enterprises and began staging job fairs, " he said. Zhang is in charge of the recruitment scheme.

Three fairs were held in September. These saw 10 private enterprises offer 400 positions to 130 graduates at the pavilion, giving them an average of three positions each from which to choose, said Zhang.

Most Expo volunteers work for a two-week period during the May-October Expo, but the majority of those in the corporate pavilions on the Puxi side have signed one-year contracts. These made room for several months of training and the Expo's soft opening. There are an average of 5,000 volunteers on active duty inside the Expo Garden at any one time.

Next month, some will return to their studies. Others will fret about how to kick-start their careers. The fortunate few will already have paid jobs waiting for them.