TIANJIN - Chinese President Xi Jinping encouraged college students to be ambitious as well as down-to-earth in their job hunts.

Xi made the call while visiting a vocational training center during a two-day inspection tour to Tianjin Municipality that ended on Wednesday.

While talking with representatives of college graduates, the unemployed and rural surplus labor force at the China Tianjin Public Vocational Training Center, he asked college students not to shy away from working at the grassroots level and in tough places and urged them to issue extraordinary performances in ordinary job situations.

Meanwhile, Xi stressed finding employment for the youth, especially college graduates, and poor urbanites, veterans and migrant workers. He also urged authorities to make efforts to provide sound vocational training and improve the employment service system in an effort to ease structural unemployment.

Xi also required relevant authorities to assist college graduates who start their own businesses as well as those who have difficulty finding jobs.

The president also visited the China HR Development & Promotion Center (Tianjin), and talked with job seekers on site.

China will see a record-high 6.99 million people graduate from college this year, up 2.8 percent year on year, according to official figures.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at a recent meeting that China faces a tough employment situation due to the tempered economic growth in the past few months of this year.