BEIJING — Oakley Qiao had every reason to feel confident when he began his job hunt last September. He was a student at one of China’s top graduate business schools. He already had a few years of work experience. Students applying for jobs at the same time the previous year had gotten two or three offers by the winter, sometimes for a starting salary 20 times the average Chinese annual income.

But on Tuesday, Mr. Qiao walked away empty-handed from the campus of Peking University to take a train northeast to his frigid hometown.

Most of his 100 classmates are in the same straits on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins Monday, even though the school had invited recruiters to the campus every week since the fall. Mr. Qiao said he had handed out résumés to more than 50 companies.

“Everyone’s anxious,” he said as he sat in a campus cafe the day before leaving. “The companies who come to the job fairs, they just come to give presentations, not to offer jobs.”