Student confidence falling – but it’s not all gloom

Research undertaken by TARGETjobs.co.uk and revealed at the recent Breakfast News event in London shows that final years are feeling less confident about their prospects as the academic year has progressed. The key findings of the survey of 1,500 students in April 2010 were:

Confidence in career prospects has fallen with just under half of respondents claiming to feel confident compared to around 60 per cent in February
The perceived lack of jobs was the biggest contributing factor
Least confident were students studying in Yorkshire and most confident were students in Wales
Males were over 20 per cent more confident than females
Despite these views, research carried out at the same time by AGR reveals that graduate vacancies were still available in 59 per cent of recruiters surveyed and over 80 per cent have not reduced their 2010 intake – which indicates that students, while right to be cautious, are perhaps more pessimistic than they should be

Targetjobs