UK businesses who are investing in newspaper advertising to recruit graduate talent may be wasting their money according to new research from Reed Employment of almost 400 graduates. 89% of graduates claimed that they only ever search for jobs online; 18% use specialist recruitment agencies; 8% apply in person and just 3% regularly check newspaper job sections. 80% of respondents also claim to be avid users of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.
It seems that speed is the name of the game for graduate jobseekers, with 57% stating they spend less than an hour researching for jobs; 18% spending between one and two hours; just 15% spending over two hours and 9% claiming they just turn up at interviews, without having researched the company at all.
A half claimed they were not given enough information before their interviews. The kinds of information most in demand were details about training and development opportunities (40%); the office location and surrounding amenities (17%); the office culture (15%), and the salary on offer (12%).
Originally posted on March 5, 2008 @ 4:51 am