Marketization Of Internship Recruitment Discourse On Wechat Public Accounts

In recent years,an emerging trend of employability and employer brand implementation can be witnessed in internship recruitment discourse.This practice,through the consequent marketization of recruitment discourse,develops internship-related ideologies and leads to the worsening of power asymmetry between enterprises and students.Past research related to this area,however,mainly build around the concept of employability and employer brand itself while the construction process of the concept has yet to be tapped in similar social and discursive context.To bridge the gap in this area,the present study will analyze internship recruitment discourse of three prestigious IT enterprises in China in 2016,2017 and2018,under the theoretical framework of CDA(critical discourse analysis)and by means of social practice analysis.Three naturalized relationships emerge from the analysis of internship recruitment discourse: First,enterprises will accept applicants regardless of their employability level;Second,the participation / application of internship ensures immediate accesses to employability improvement resources;And third,the economic deficiency in internship has already been overcompensated by the overall employer brand benefits.These,altogether,have contributed to the overpowering dominance for enterprises both discursively and practically.Based on the research findings,several suggestions from the perspective of students(interns),enterprises and educational institutions have been proposed,such as techonologization of discourse,effectuation of marketized discourse,and the bridging of enterprises and students with educational expertise,with an aim to democratize recruitment process and internship participation.