Job seekers look to livestreams for vacancies

Livestreaming e-commerce anchors are helping companies lure job seekers by posting information on their platforms.

Ji Langlang writes recruiting requirements and job descriptions of some companies and factories on a whiteboard during his livestreaming, including age limits, monthly salaries and accommodation conditions.

The 31-year-old worked as a plating technician at a factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu province for five years from 2014, and started to share short videos about his life in 2017.

He attracted over one million followers on short video platforms such as Kuaishou, and quit his factory job to become a full-time livestreaming anchor around 2019. He never thought about "selling jobs" in his livestreams until his former factory employer asked if he could recruit some workers back in June 2021.

"From June 15 to the end of that month in 2021, I helped the factory recruit around 80 workers, which was a surprise to me," he told Jiangsu News, a news channel under Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation. After doing research on "selling jobs through livestreaming", he opened his own human resources agency in December 2021.

A recent report by the Research Center of New Forms of Employment under Capital University of Economics and Business said that livestreaming platforms have become a new way for blue-collar workers to seek jobs.

It said that job information shared by livestreaming anchors on Kuaishou attracted an average of 250 million views from blue-collar workers per month in 2022.

College students and demobilized military members — key groups of the job market — are among the main targets of livestreaming recruitment.

Zheng Chengxin, director of college recruitment of Asiainfo Technologies, a software provider in Beijing, said the company started to recruit through livestreaming in May 2021.

"We livestream for one or one and a half hours to introduce some popular job vacancies, such as algorithm and software development, to the viewers — mostly college students. It usually attracts thousands of views and job seekers can submit their resumes by clicking the links on the screen," said Zheng, who has a bullish view on the future of livestreaming employment.

Li Qiang, vice-executive president of recruitment portal Zhaopin, said that job seekers can get firsthand and precise job information in the livestreaming rooms through anchors' introductions and realtime replies.

"Job seekers can also get a quick understanding of the company and submit their resumes at livestreaming rooms rather than taking hours to research company information and submit resumes through traditional recruiting channels. Employers can also increase their recruiting efficiency by receiving real-time resumes and arranging interviews," he said.

"Livestreaming recruitment can also break space limits to let job seekers watch livestreaming anywhere while employers can lure talent from across the nation."

Li said that livestreaming appeals to young people, who are more used to visualized information.

"It has a stronger advantage to match job seekers with suitable vacancies compared with traditional online or on-site recruitment."

Government departments have also taken supportive measures to promote livestreaming recruitment. For example, Hebei province organized 12 livestreams in the past 40 days to help demobilized military members land jobs, which attracted over 400,000 online views, and 2,145 demobilized military members signed preliminary agreements with employers.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security launched a 100-day recruiting campaign on June 6, which aims to collect over 10 million job vacancies for college students and other job seekers. During the campaign, the ministry encourages local authorities to publish job information through livestreaming.