Job seekers in China turn Tinder into a networking tool

Young Chinese people facing an increasingly difficult job market are turning to an unlikely place for help in their job search: Tinder.

Jade Liang, a master’s student in Shanghai, decided to dust off her dating app account after unsuccessfully applying to more than 400 online jobs. She had previously used it in her search for romance, but now she finds it helpful to connect with professional colleagues for informal coffee chats.

“I just swiped on people in the industry that I aspire to join,” which is technology, said Liang, 26, who told NBC News that he makes his intentions clear once he starts chatting with the matches online and finds that the response is generally welcoming.

Liang is among the job seekers in China who resort to unconventional methods due to intense competition and scarcity of job opportunities. Some unemployed adults even work as “full-time children” for their parents, doing housework and running errands in exchange for financial support.

China, the world’s second largest economy after the United States, is grappling with youth unemployment, which reached a record high of 21.3% last June. After suspending the release of youth unemployment data for several months to review the calculation method, Chinese authorities said in December that the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24, excluding students, was at 14.9%.

That compares with 8% unemployment among Americans ages 15 to 24 in the same month, according to the Federal Reserve.

While high youth unemployment is not unusual for countries like China that also face other economic challenges, “China’s problems appear to be more serious this time,” said Su Yue, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Shanghai.

“The country’s economic downturn, the impact of the pandemic and industry consolidation occurred simultaneously, making the impact on the youth population even greater,” he said.

Faced with such pressures, “we can’t help but feel a rush of excitement when we meet someone who works in the same industry, even while browsing a dating app,” said Joy Geng, a recent college graduate British company which is now based in Beijing.

Liang first thought of Tinder as a job search tool after seeing a viral post on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, from a user who claimed to have successfully found a job using a dating app Chinese.

Similar posts suggesting dating apps as a way to find work are not uncommon on Chinese social media.

“When hiring managers ask me how I know about the vacancy, I say: Tinder,” read a widely shared meme last year.

Although Tinder is one of many foreign apps blocked in mainland China, residents can access it using virtual private networks.

“By using dating apps, we can reach more people,” Liang said. “Normally, we need a lot of time to get close to people. But with dating apps, you hang out with strangers for a couple of hours and they can already give you a lot of personal information.”

Geng said job seekers may also be turning to Tinder because they no longer have access to LinkedIn, which was also blocked in China after it announced it would withdraw from the country in 2021, and are dissatisfied with domestic alternatives.

Liang said that even though she can access LinkedIn using a VPN, she still tried Tinder because she found that traditional job search methods had failed her.

“The market is oversaturated due to the economic crisis,” he said.

Tinder itself discourages this practice, stating that its platform is designed to foster personal relationships, not work ones.

“Tinder is not a place to promote businesses to try to make money,” a company spokesperson told NBC News.

It has also drawn criticism from those who sincerely seek romantic connections and say they can no longer trust other users’ motives.

“I can’t believe people use dating apps to find jobs,” read one comment on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X. “I can’t believe a word a dating app user says in the introduction.”

Romy Liu, who previously worked for an executive search firm in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, said that from an employer’s perspective, finding a job opportunity through Tinder would suggest a candidate has “strong social skills ” and made a pretty strong impression on someone. they just met to get a referral.

“I think someone who can get a job through this kind of platform is amazing,” he said.

But it is less efficient than traditional job search methods, he said, and “may only be viable when looking for work at international companies or Internet giants.”

And not all employers may look so kindly on Tinder’s approach, Liu warned.

“If a state company ever heard about you looking for work on Tinder, I think they might put you on a permanent blacklist,” he said.

Zoey Zeng, who works in the financial sector in Paris, said that while the Tinder method is available to job seekers around the world, some factors could make it more effective in China, where it is mainly used by highly educated professionals.

Tinder users in China “are already very selective because the vast majority of users were pursuing degrees abroad,” Zeng said. “But in France, Tinder is known for finding sexual partners: 90% of the people I connected with wanted to find friends with benefits.”

“I think the purpose of this kind of software in China and abroad is still not the same,” said Zeng, who uses Tinder only for networking.

She said she still finds Tinder a useful professional tool in Paris because “even though it’s not very efficient on my part, I still manage to network with people who exactly match my background.”

Liang is still looking for opportunities in China.

“I’m a little tempted to give up because it’s so hard to find an ideal job,” she said. “But I believe I will get substantial help if I actively use dating apps or other ways to look for work.”