Is it difficult to find employment in environmental majors? Where are the opportunities for "breaking the circle of employment"?

"I feel that companies have less demand for PhDs this year. Either they won't hire them or the benefits are low."

"There is a very obvious feeling this year that the competition pressure for some ordinary positions is increasing. In previous years, undergraduate students competed for positions, but this year, graduate students competed for them; it turned out that some positions were competing for graduate students, but this year, doctoral students competed for them."

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Graduation season again. According to previously disclosed officially data, the number of college graduates in my country is expected to reach 11.79 million in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 210,000. The reporter learned that in the new economic situation and social background, this year's spring move presents some characteristics. For example, graduates 'mentality of "seeking stability" when looking for a job has increased; while the new energy industry extends olive branches to graduates majoring in environment and provides new positions, there is also a phenomenon of terminating contracts on the grounds of "business problems"; companies pay more attention to labor cost control, etc.

How to view these phenomena in recruitment? What social psychology is behind "slow employment" and "slow employment"? In the context of "double carbon", what new options do graduates have for environmental majors? As the "last train" of spring recruitment slowly passed by, the reporter interviewed many college teachers, counselors, students and practitioners to listen to their most true feelings and thoughts.

The "seeking stability" mentality has intensified, and psychological expectations for job hunting have declined

"I'm quite open about employment. It's good to be able to do what I like. I don't have high requirements for income, so I just have food."

Talking about the topic of employment, Wang Yihan (pseudonym), a doctoral student at the School of Urban and Environment of Peking University, gave a somewhat "Versailles" answer, but she didn't think it was "Versailles". She said: "I do theoretical research, such as the impact of climate change. My relatives and friends asked me what I was learning? I say it is mainly to 'fortune-telling' the earth. To put it more scientifically, it means 'simulating/predicting the future state of the earth under various scenarios.' I think scientific research is very interesting, so the first choice for employment is academic work, but now young teachers are good at exams. Domestic colleges and universities have a 'either promotion or leave' mechanism. After a few years of entry, if you fail the assessment, you will leave, which is similar to the 35-year-old mark for programmers. If you can't go academically, you may want to go to select and transfer students. However, the road to selecting and transferring students has not been easy in recent years. On the one hand, there are many people applying for it, and on the other hand, jobs in various places are gradually saturated. If we go to a company, our employment scope is relatively narrow, and the R & D positions in the company may tend to recruit more suitable professional talents. So every option is difficult."

Wang Yihan is not the only one with similar confusion. Wei Jian, another doctoral student in the same college as her, said: "The competition for entering universities or research institutes is very fierce. There are so many students that we can only strive for results to win an opportunity. Companies may be more inclined to recruit graduates in environmental engineering, water supply and drainage, environmental design, etc., while the ecology I study is more inclined to basic research."

Recently, the "2024 College Student Employability Survey Report" released by Zhaopin Recruitment showed that graduates '"seeking stability" mentality in finding a job continues to increase. More than half of graduates believe that job stability is the most important ", which is an increase of 10 percentage points over last year.

Yin Liangtao, a counselor for the 2024 graduate students at Kunming University of Science and Technology who frequently visits the recruitment site, told reporters: "According to my observation, basic positions such as safety and environmental protection positions in previous years, especially in some remote places, were not attractive to students. But this year's students are less reluctant to see lower-paying grassroots positions. Even if the working environment is not so ideal, their acceptance is higher."

On April 17, 2024, at a university in Anhui Province, college graduates looked for jobs at a job fair. Tuyuan People's Picture Network

What is the psychology behind "slow employment" and "slow employment"?

Another important manifestation of graduates '"seeking stability" is that the proportion of graduates who take public examinations and further studies remains high. The "Undergraduate Teaching Quality Report for the 2022-2023 Academic Year" released by Tsinghua University shows that the main graduation destination for recent undergraduate graduates is to further studies, accounting for about 80%. As a recruiter, Sun Li, human resources manager of Beijing Longtao Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that this phenomenon has been particularly obvious in the past two years.

Reporters also felt this trend in interviews with college teachers and students. Peng Xing, counselor of the Department of Environmental Engineering at the School of Information Engineering at China University of Finance and Economics, said: "Judging from this year's situation, further education is one of the main directions for graduates of our school's environmental majors. The proportion of postgraduate studies and postgraduate studies is close to 60%, and the rest is mainly Employment."

The "2024 College Student Employability Survey Report" shows that the proportion of recent graduates choosing "slow employment" and freelance employment has increased from 18.9% and 13.2% last year to 19.1% and 13.7% respectively this year. As the enrollment of graduate students continues to expand, the proportion of recent graduates who continue to study in China has increased from 4.9% last year to 6.5% this year.

"Slow employment" usually refers to the group of recent graduates who have not yet entered the job market, including groups such as "seeking employment after continuing their studies" and "suspending employment". According to a survey of recent college graduates conducted by the Shanghai Survey Team of the National Bureau of Statistics, continuing to study to improve their abilities is the main reason why they choose "slow employment".

Faced with this phenomenon, Yin Liangtao has different views. He said: "Students are very confused. Once employment hits a hit, they can easily choose to take a public exam or further studies. Among the master's degree graduates in our school, the number of students I know who have taken the exam and who have been 'ready to be admitted' is twice that of last year. The psychology behind it is to increase the competitiveness of employment, and the other is to buffer employment pressure. But as far as I know, the result-oriented orientation of PhD reading is relatively obvious. Many companies and universities report that it is actually useless to have only a doctoral degree without actual results. For many students, the idea that after studying for a PhD, it will be easier to find a job has not changed." Therefore,"slow-employment" graduates should have clearer career goals and more active employment preparations.

Companies are more cautious

With the economic downturn and cyclical changes in the environmental protection industry, environmental protection companies are facing many challenges. In recent years, many environmental protection companies have collapsed in the environmental protection market, experiencing problems such as shrinking market value and declining performance. "Slim down, transform and increase efficiency" has become a new approach chosen by many environmental protection companies in the upgrade battle. In this process, cost control has become increasingly important. And this concept has also penetrated into the recruitment of talents by enterprises.

The "2024 College Student Employability Survey Report" shows that among the factors that recent graduates value in job hunting, 71.2% place salary and benefits first. However, the reality may not be satisfactory. Li Zhongjun, Secretary of the Party Branch of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Hebei Institute of Environmental Engineering, told reporters: "Currently, about two-thirds of the employment positions of undergraduate graduates in our Department of Environmental Sciences have been confirmed. Some students who have not yet been employed are mainly in terms of salary, employment location, and majors. There are some hesitation in terms of matching salaries and development space." According to the reporter's understanding, the general expectation of salary for undergraduate students at Hebei Institute of Environmental Engineering is a starting salary of about 5000 yuan/month. However, according to the current situation, some positions cannot meet students 'expectations, and some students are worried about becoming a "moonlight family."

In order to balance the "mismatch" between the employment situation and the psychological expectations of graduates, many universities, including Hebei University of Environmental Engineering, have carried out relevant work in advance. Yin Liangtao told reporters: "We introduced students very early to ask them to do psychological construction in case some students will keep 'holding' and miss some opportunities."

In addition, some college teachers introduced that gender differences in employment have become more prominent. "Many companies came to our school this year and directly said they wanted to find boys. I feel that companies are becoming more cautious in recruiting. The pressure of the general environment is transmitted downward, which also affects the company's choice of employment gender."

On May 9, the 2024 Graduate Job Fair of Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province and the special job fair for "Hundreds of Cities, Thousands of Schools, Thousands of Enterprises" in Jiangxi Province to promote employment and connect with industrial parks were held at Xinyu College.
Tuyuan People's Picture Network

What new employment opportunities will the "dual carbon" strategy bring?

As all walks of life are transforming into a green and low-carbon direction, graduates majoring in the environment have more possibilities for "breaking the circle".

As a counselor at a school of finance, politics and law, Peng Xing told reporters: "Some of our students will work in banks or choose similar positions such as financial accounting. This is related to the background of our school. We have some new educational directions, such as environmental economics, green finance, etc. Students who report 'engineering background + environment-related background + financial knowledge reserves' are compound talents that financial institutions prefer. When financial institutions develop some green and low-carbon financial products, it will be more appropriate for talents with environmental professional backgrounds to participate in the development. Our college has opened dual-degree classes such as 'Big Data Management and Application + Financial Engineering' and 'Artificial Intelligence + Accounting', which will increase students' competitiveness."

A practitioner who has worked hard in the field of environmental protection for many years told reporters: "If there are job opportunities related to 'double carbon', graduates are advised to try them. Although salary is important, development is more important. For some jobs, you may only get 5000 yuan a month now, but in 10 years, it may become 50,000 yuan. You need to look at some emerging business formats from a development perspective. Not long ago, several national ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Development of Smart Cities and Promoting the Digital Transformation of Cities", so that zero-carbon smart parks, green intelligent buildings and other fields will generate more new demands. In addition, there are some new positions related to the environment, including smart water solution positions, smart energy analysts, low-carbon researchers, and ESG-related positions, and their salary conditions are all considerable. ESG positions recruited by some well-known domestic companies provide employees with a monthly salary of 30,000 - 60,000 yuan. According to media statistics, the average annual salary of the ESG industry is 253,000 yuan, and the average monthly salary exceeds 20,000 yuan, which is higher than the level of the fund/securities/futures/investment industry."

In addition, there is still a large gap in my country's carbon emission managers. Wang Jun, author of "The Era of Carbon Neutrality" and senior carbon emission manager, said that this industry has a bright future, and the demand for talents in the carbon emission management industry is also exploding. However, due to the incomplete training and training system, there is still a shortage of professional carbon emission managers.

Li Zhongjun introduced: "Social development and transformation are accelerating. In order to match talent supply and demand, schools are constantly updating their teaching and practical training to align with social development. We are also considering whether we can improve the teaching plan from aspects such as environmental big data, artificial intelligence, and 'double carbon', and add relevant courses. If students have advantages in this regard, they will have more options for future employment."

In fact, in addition to the new demands related to "double carbons", the traditional environmental protection field is still releasing good news. For example, the registration of environmental engineers, which has been stagnant for more than ten years, was recently launched, which delighted many people.

There are also shortages of certain types of work in some places that can be paid attention to. For example, in the 2024 catalog of urgently needed talents released by Shanghai, there are "industrial wastewater treatment workers" and "chemical inspectors". The aforementioned old environmentalist said: "For these types of work, people with environmental or chemical-related professional background can take the exam and obtain a certificate. Chemical laboratories or testing companies usually have physical and chemical laboratories, and they definitely need physical and chemical testing personnel, people majoring in environment or chemistry-related majors. The newcomers are technical employees when they first join the company and become assistant engineers after one year. After five years, they can be awarded intermediate professional titles, and after ten years, they can be awarded senior professional titles. Don't dislike these professions. You can start working first and solve your own food and clothing problem. You can then consider changing careers or moving to a similar industry."

At the same time, in the current employment context, some teachers also called for: "We hope that the country will provide more incentive policies to promote independent innovation and independent employment. Graduates 'employment should be checkerboard shaped, with multi-point layout." When talking about self-employment, doctoral student Wei Jian transferred to reporters a self-media account he operated on the "Beili Beili" platform. After clicking on it, the reporter noticed that the number of followers on this account has reached 466,000. He told reporters: "Maybe I will open a studio in the future." Wei Jian's idea made reporters feel that under the background of the confusing traditional employment situation, the new business format may bring more possibilities.