Graduate job prospects in conference spotlight

Businesses and higher education experts will join the debate about the future of student employment and internships at Yorkshire’s fourth annual graduate employment conference.

Graduates Yorkshire and the Graduate Network, the UK’s graduate employment provider, have come together to host the event which takes place at the Park Plaza Hotel in Leeds. Graduate internships schemes, including those operated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, regional development agencies and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, are drawing to a close over the next couple of months and have not been offered further support from the Government.

The conference comes after research today suggested students are applying for more jobs at an earlier stage in an attempt to secure work in what they see as a tough employment market.

More than a third of final-year students made applications to graduate employers by the end of last October, while 43 per cent applied between November and the end of February.

Four-fifths of all final-year students who want a graduate job when they leave university had begun submitting applications by the end of February, according to High Fliers Research.