AS graduation approaches and job hunting begins, many people turn to family connections to land a good job in a tight market. It’s called pindie or competing through daddy.

Peter Chen, an engineering major, has settled down in his new position in the security department of a major state-owned gas company. This is his fourth job since he graduated two years ago from a second-tier university.

And again, thanks to his father, the 25-year-old found this cushy job, with almost nothing to do — he periodically checks the perfectly operating system — and draws an annual salary of 100,000 yuan (US$16,265).

Chen’s father is the manger of a state-owned bank; he pulled strings to get his son four jobs in two years.

“The work is so light that I spent most of my day on the Internet. Plus, I probably have the best academic qualification in my department, so there are great opportunities for promotion,” he tells Shanghai Daily.

Chen is among many lucky college students who get the chance to play the game of pindie (compete through daddy’s power 拼爹), rather than working hard. Pindie is a new buzzword that means using family background (not necessarily dad) or connections to get ahead in work, education, medical treatment and even marriage.

This is yet another example of privileged, and often spoiled, people getting ahead in an increasingly unequal society, not through merit, through guanxi (connection 关系) and family influence.

Many people are offended by cases like this and say the benefits of China’s increasing wealth are not shared fairly. It reminds people of the extreme case in October 2010 when a young driver killed a female college student in Hebei Province, fled the scene and then dared police to arrest him, saying his father, a deputy police chief, would protect him.

But these are more mundane and pervasive cases.

After graduating, Chen’s father arranged for him to get a job with a design company under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, but he complained the job was not challenging enough. Then he became an assistant designer at a Shanghai-based Hong Kong design company, and later a supervisor of construction at the future Disneyland in Shanghai.

“Can you imagine the dust at the construction site? It’s utterly unbearable,” he tearfully told his father.

“People with higher social status have more resources and power that are delivered to their offspring. This has been quite common. But when pindie becomes a dominant means of social competition, then the society becomes unjust. And it makes it harder for ordinary people to advance,” says Zhang Haidong, professor of sociology at Shanghai University.

Millions of educated young people and recent college graduates are unemployed, though reliable figures are not available.

Last week, parliamentary adviser Huang Dekuan, chancellor of Anhui University, said that college students entering the labor market need a reasonably fair system that ensures they can find meaningful work and advance toward their goals. He is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

In a 2013 survey by the China Youth Daily, nearly 84 percent of respondents said young people would prefer to get a job by pindie. Around 36 percent regretted they didn’t have a “good daddy” to help when they encounter problems in life.

No connections? No luck

After graduating in media studies from Leeds University in the UK, 24-year-old Sophie Wu, 24, went to work at a leading state-owned enterprise, thanks to her uncle’s influence.

“In the first few months, almost all my colleagues were asking me what my father does or encouraging me to talk about my family background,” she says. Although this made her very uncomfortable, she put up with it due to her handsome income.

This is the peak time for graduates to enter labor market. For those who don’t want to rely on family or background, or who have no such background to rely on, the situation is very difficult.

On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang told the National People’s Congress that 7.27 million university graduates would soon be looking for jobs.

“More positions should be created to increase the proportion of college students who can carve out a niche for themselves,” he said.

Zhu Yangzhen, 22, a senior at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai, has an influential father. But the biomedical engineering major is a top student and he doesn’t want to ask for help.

Still, top grades and merit often don’t matter.

Like most college students, Zhu started job hunting last September. He got some offers from pharmaceutical companies of “empty sales jobs” but rejected them all. “I loathe sales,” he says.

After realizing there was no way he could keep his job at the Shanghai-based foreign company where he has interned, he started to panic.

“If I want to work in the lab, most of the companies are outside of Shanghai, and I don’t want to leave,” he says.

Now he has adjusted his sights and is looking for any job he likes, regardless of the money and size of the company.

So far, he has sent out 20 resumes through a job-hunting website and has received no replies.

“I know I can ask my father for help, but that’s the last thing I want to do,” Zhu states.

“During job hunting, graduating seniors need to be mentally prepared and have a balanced attitude,” says Zhang, the Shanghai University sociology professor. “You don’t have to find your ideal job at once, lower your expectations and find a job that allows you to be independent and settle daily life issues.”

Entrenched sex discrimination is another problem for female graduates who not only face a bad job market. Some turn to pin die.

One young women who declines to be identified got a job at a television station because her father and grandfather are both retired cadres. But once she got there, she found many colleagues had more influential families and she was assigned to rather low-level work, which offended her. She also felt uncomfortable in the shifting political environment in which many people pin die. She quit.

“When there’s a job opportunity, sometimes the recruitment information and even our class adviser tells us males are preferred. I’m offended,” says Xu Yiwen, a senior graduating from Fudan in Chinese language and literature.