How are higher education career services experiencing the recession?

Published: August  2009; Pages: 13; Size: 69Kb

This Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) survey explores two issues: firstly, how accurate careers advisers feel the media coverage of the graduate labour market during the current recession is, and secondly, how recent graduates are responding to what are undoubtedly difficult labour market conditions.

In July 2009 HECSU launched a short online survey asking university careers services how they think the recession has affected graduate vacancies and what kinds of strategies they have seen final year students adopting in response to the recession. The survey comprised seven questions, four of which were open-ended to enable participants to respond ‘in their own words’. It was sent to 526 careers advisers and heads of careers services via HECSU’s contact database. The survey closed in August 2009 and achieved a response rate of 17% (92 respondents).

Download a pdf of the full report How are Higher Education Career Services Experiencing the Recession?

One question asked careers advisers to provide tips for job seeking graduates in this difficult labour market and a list of top tips was compiled.  

Download as pdf of  Top tips for 2009 graduates.