90% of final year students are concerned there will be fewer job opportunities for them because of the disruption and uncertainty caused by COVID-19.
For the final year students GradTouch supports on their career journey, who are just months away from entering the working world, the future can seem like a scary place even at the best of times.
In the unprecedented times we’re currently living through, the world beyond university looks ever more daunting.
Those same students are the ones who many of the graduate employers we work with will soon look to recruit as their next generation of talent. Given the unparalleled disruption they are currently facing at the most crucial stage of their university life, we wanted to know how they are feeling, so that we can better support our employers to understand the climate within their candidate pools and adapt their recruitment strategies accordingly.
To do this, we conducted a straw poll of just under 300 final year students within the GradTouch community to get their thoughts and give them a chance to voice their concerns and ask their questions.
A staggering 90% of the final year students we spoke to say they fear there will be fewer job opportunities for them because of COVID-19. More worryingly, a further 34% of them say they’ve been put-off from applying to jobs at all due to increased uncertainty for the future.
Meanwhile, calls for leniency from universities and employers in light of decreased quality of studying clash with fear that the class of 2020 will forever be known as the ‘coronavirus graduates’.
You can find the results of the straw poll and read some of what students had to say here.
