A 120,000-Yuan Offer for Top Graduates Sparks a Hiring Fight

A campus recruitment drive in Chongqing has turned into an unusually public argument about graduate pay in China after a motorcycle company offered annual salaries of 120,000 to 150,000 yuan (about $17,000 to $21,000) to students from the country’s most selective universities — and was promptly mocked online.

The company, associated with founder Zhang Xue, plans to hire roughly 100 people, about 70 percent of them in research and development. The pay ladder is tiered. Graduates of 985 and 211 universities — a two-tier designation for China’s leading public institutions — are offered 120,000 to 150,000 yuan a year for R&D posts and 100,000 to 120,000 for non-R&D roles. Students from ordinary universities are offered 100,000 to 130,000 for R&D and 90,000 to 120,000 otherwise. Overtime is paid separately.

The benefits package is where the offer becomes more interesting. Staff receive six types of insurance and a housing fund, access to a canteen, and a 50 percent discount on the company’s own motorcycles for R&D employees. Interns get free twin rooms; after probation, rent is 200 yuan a month.

The reaction online was not kind. Commenters called the package arrogant, arguing that a company asking for graduates from China’s best universities should pay more than a mid-sized firm hiring from anywhere. The criticism spread far enough that Zhang responded directly, telling media critics they had lost the plot — a blunt retort that only widened the argument.

The dispute is a small window into a large tension. China produces more than ten million university graduates a year, and the competition for jobs at well-known companies has grown fierce. Yet the salary expectations of top-tier graduates have not fallen to match. Companies, meanwhile, are trying to hold down costs as margins tighten. When the two sides meet at a campus fair, the gap becomes visible.

There is also a regional dimension. Chongqing is a manufacturing hub in southwest China, cheaper than Beijing or Shenzhen but far from the technology clusters where graduates often hope to land. A factory-town employer offering a modest salary and cheap housing is making a bet that cost of living matters as much as headline pay. Whether students agree is the question the recruitment drive has accidentally put to the public.

For global readers, the episode is a reminder that China’s graduate labour market is not a single story. Elite universities still carry enormous prestige, and employers still use their tiers as a screening shortcut. But the willingness of a founder to argue publicly with critics — rather than quietly adjust the offer — says something about how sensitive hiring has become. The next campus season will show whether the criticism changed anything, or whether 120,000 yuan is simply the new opening bid.