IN BEIJING

TOUGH times in China call for desperate, and sometimes  very creative, measures.

Millions of university graduates are on the hunt for work in an increasingly tight job market and some have thought up innovative ways to stand out from the rest and catch the eye of prospective employers.

Fifteen mathematics students from the graduating class of the North China University of Technology in Beijing have put themselves up for auction on popular online auction site Taobao.com, state media reported on Thursday.

The 15 "auction items" posted their photos and resumes on the site, which is known as the Chinese version of Ebay. Their bidding prices ranged from 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan.

"The price is our expected monthly pay," said Wang Danke one of the 15 students and who set up the "online store". "We'd like to 'sell' ourselves with our wit."

Of the 33 students in his class graduating this year, 24 are looking for jobs. Seven have gone on to postgraduate study. Only two have offers from prospective employers, Xinhua reported, quoting Mr Wang.

With more than 6 million new graduates entering the job market this year, and some 2 million graduates from last year who are still seeking work, competition for employment is intense.

Job fairs are swamped and graduates are resorting to taking any sort of work available, be it working as nannies or heading to rural villages to be officials or teachers.

Beijing has called on employers and companies to create positions for graduates. The government has also urged students to be more flexible about what kind of work they accept, encouraging them to take up jobs in smaller companies, in fields different from their specialties, or to start their own businesses.

However, it remains to be seen if graduates will be willing to take up jobs dealing with the dead in a country where death is still considered taboo.

Yesterday, Shanghai media reported that the city's funeral industry would be holding its first ever job fair to recruit college students, offering 400 posts. More than 20 funeral parlors and cemeteries will be at the fair, with vacancies for office staff, funeral planners and technical jobs, such as make-up experts.

Jobs on offer will pay around 3,000 yuan a month, 300 yuan higher than the average salary for new graduates in the city. Industry insiders told The Shanghai Daily that they hoped the students would "love the job and not just take it for the money."

As for the Taobao students, Mr Wang said their decision to turn to the Internet was because they wanted to raise their profile.

"Most of the time, all employers know about you is what's on your resume, which is just one more piece of paper in a pile," he told Xinhua. "After four years of hard study, our classmates feel like a bumper crop of oranges, with no one giving a bite."

"My class is a class of elites: basketball captain, Olympic volunteer, versatile painter, and backbones of the student union," Wang's ad on the website proclaimed. "We just need a chance."

Their auction was suspended for three days in mid-March after Taobao.com became concerned about the possible illegal use of personal information. Mr Wang and his classmates had to provide notarised authorisations, Xinhua reported.

"We have confirmed with the students and their university that this is truly a method of job-hunting," Mr Zhao Jingpeng of Taobao’s consumer service department told Xinhua. "We decided to make an exception to our rules, given the tough employment situation."

Their publicity stunt looks to have paid off. Mr Wang said his classmates were interviewed by headhunters on Tuesday, who said they "admired the students' energy to act."

Others however, are not so lucky.

The local press reported a sad story earlier this week - of an out of work graduate who resorted to robbery in order to get money for a train ticket home to see his sick father.

After graduating, the student surnamed Wang headed to Beijing for work in 2007 but lost his job last October. He was too ashamed to tell the relatives that he was staying with so he put up an act by leaving the house early every morning and returning only late at night. He passed his time at a library in Beijing, said reports.

Recently, he received word from his family that his father was seriously ill. Broke and too embarrassed to ask his relatives for money, he resorted to robbing a female passer-by at the Beijing west railway station at knifepoint.

He was apprehended by other passers-by and turned over to the police.

When they recovered the stolen handbag, the police found that there was only 4 yuan and a mineral water bottle inside.