Beijing and Shanghai are still the first-choice destination for over half of college graduates to pursue a career, while Chengdu and Hanghzou have gained in popularity, Zhaopin.com, a leading Chinese online recruitment site, found.

Salary still remains the most important criterion for college graduates when it comes to job hunting and their expected monthly salary in the first job is CNY 5,792, the survey covering 20 universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University found.

The findings suggest 75.3 percent of graduates choose to start working instead of pursuing postgraduate studies. Their preferred employers are foreign companies with 36.6 percent of respondents, state-owned enterprises, 21.4 percent, private companies, 18 percent, public institutions, 11.1 percent and government departments with 7.6 percent.