Abstract:

New Economic Sociology has made great progress since Mark Granovetter’s seminal work. Many empirical studies focus on labor market and jobsearching activities. However， up to now， the unit of analysis in most of those studies was the relationship between individuals， such as strong ties or weak ties. Brinton and Kariya’s research has extended the existing framework for analysis and suggested job searching through institutional embeddedness. A job searcher using this method usually belongs to an organization or institute that has a tie with an employer. Applying institutional embeddedness to the job searching of the college graduates in China， we studied the impact of different recruitment channels on getting a job. The major focus of our analysis was on the relationships between job searching through institutional embeddedness and such variables as educational levels， reputation of the college or university， students’ performance， and the starting salaries of college graduates.

Key words: institutional embeddedness, job search, college graduates