HANGZHOU is a magnet for out-of-town college graduates seeking jobs - they are known as "ants" because they swarm into China's urban centers. One hotel is helping with more than room and board. Xu Wenwen reports. A small hotel similar to a youth hostel is making a name for itself by helping students and university grads flooding into Hangzhou in search of jobs.

The Xiezhi Hotel on Liubuzhi Street doesn't just offer cheap clean lodging from 10 yuan (US$1.46) to 25 yuan a night. It also helps them in their job hunt with city maps and tips. It's branding itself and planning to start a headhunting service just for its clientele.

All over China, college graduates are swarming into cities in search of a job, and life can be difficult in the economic downturn as many graduates are unemployed. They are known as "ants" because there are so many of them, they are weak and they live in "colonies," often crowded into cheap dingy hostels and living hand-to-mouth.

Next to getting a job, finding a cheap and comfortable place to live is priority No. 2.

Xiezhi Hotel is atypical: it's comfortable and it welcomes young people and caters to their needs.

Since it opened in July, it has had more than 5,000 guests.

It was started by a 37-year-old entrepreneur, Wen Shaobo, from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, who has many other businesses.

The small storefront reception area is easy to miss. It only covers 5 square meters, but there are big plans.

It contains three sections, each with 40 rooms containing 200 beds; each room can accommodate four, six or eight people.

It offers air conditioning, hot water, Internet access, laundry and cleaning service. No extras or toiletries.

To ensure the guests really are students or graduates, it requires each lodger to present a diploma, students' certificate and identity card to check in.

Walls are covered with job posts, employment sections of newspapers, posters about job fairs, training and other events to interest job seekers.

Morale-building posters cheer guests up with slogans like, "You are not fighting alone."

Guests come from all over China, all with different stories, but temporarily they're all in the same boat.

Three young auto-repair vocational students from Hefei, Anhui Province, have been in town for a few days and hope to find a job paying 700 yuan, a modest level.

Their goals are pretty vague and they arrived with the expectation that they would find work in a few days.

"We came here because we heard it's an easy place to find jobs," says one young men, declining to give his name. "We haven't told our parents we were coming to Hangzhou and our money is running out. We have to go back tomorrow.

"Schools should find jobs for us - it's their responsibility," he says.

Most other guests are prepared for a long job hunt.

Fang Qingyue from Shanghai is a senior at Fudan University and spent two months as an intern at a business in Croatia. She moved to the hotel when she got a job in a foreign trade company that does business with the Balkan country.

"Hangzhou enterprises value Shanghai talents more than Shanghai enterprises," Fang says. "In Hangzhou, my lack of work experience doesn't hold me back and my education background and internship in Europe help."

She calls living in the hotel "like an extension of college life."

"It offers direction to non-locals like me, who are not familiar with the city."

Zhang Yan, another guest, comes from prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing where he majored in appraisal of calligraphy and painting. He found a job in the auction house of the Xiling Seal Society. Since he has a good educational background, he isn't worrying about finding a job but says he's fortunate to find one that draws on his major.

"A job that can support my life is enough," he says, adding that money isn't the most important element.

Not everyone gets an ideal job, like Fang and Zhang, even if they do graduate from a good school. Hotel staff tells about one guest who studied biology at Zhejiang University and has been living in the hotel since it opened around five months ago.

His expectations are so unrealistically high that he first insisted on a salary of more than 6,000 yuan. Since he didn't find work, he took a webmaster job in an Internet cafe. He was good at it but he hated working at night and sleeping during the day, so he quit. Now he does a little tutoring and continues to search for the perfect job.

Another life science major, Xu Xiaoyong from a university of Jilin Province, is more realistic. He was born in Zhejiang Province and returned because the average salary is higher than that in Jilin.

Xu, wearing a suit and tie, just got back from a job interview and says he was offered a position as salesman for a pharmaceutical company. The starting salary is over 2,000 yuan a month, typical for fresh graduates in Zhejiang.

However, he is worried that the job might be fake since he read on the Internet that some pharmaceutical companies are frauds and swindle job hunters' money, sometimes charging fees or engaging in illegal pyramid schemes.

Xiezhi is not the only hotel catering to young job seekers. Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, and other big cities have cheap hotels or flats for job hunters, but Xiezhi is especially helpful. It gives free maps and soon plans to offer free headhunting services for its guests - it just got a business license act as a headhunter for job placement.

This summer the hotel started Xie Chuang Talent Development Co to produce and distribute Hangzhou maps for job hunters.

The maps are basic city maps with notations on the reverse side of companies seeking jobs as well as notes about job seekers.

The hotel/talent company does Internet research on companies and often visits employers in person.

Map maker Yu Yukuai says they want the map to be exactly right, not just downloaded from the Internet, so they contacted the Zhejiang Province Bureau of Surveys and Mapping about getting rights to use the official map. The cost is more than 100,000 yuan but the bureau was impressed by the project and sold rights at a preferential price. The company has issued two maps since September, 50,000 each time.

Right now, the hotel is getting ready to act as a headhunter. To promote its brand, both map and headhunter service are free. When the company is mature, it plans to charge enterprises, though services will be free to hotel guests.

Address: 17 Liubuzhi St

Tel: (0571) 8649-4912