The trendence Graduate Confidence Index shows that students are less confident than they were at the start of 2014.
At yesterday’s TARGETjobs Breakfast News, the trendence UK Graduate Confidence Index was unveiled to around 200 graduate recruiters in London.
The trendence UK Graduate Confidence Index is a quarterly Index which tracks undergraduates’ confidence in getting a graduate job after leaving university and is based on a substantial snapshot poll of at least 3,000 students from all subjects and all universities.
- Over the whole of 2014, students have grown less confident about their chances of getting a graduate job – despite politicians’ and media talk of an impending economic recovery.
- In every index in 2014 male students are considerably more confident than female students about the future.
- First year students are significantly more confident than final year students – who are, of course, closer to the realities of job hunting.
- There is a huge difference between the least confident and the most confident by degree; social scientists are 17 points below medicine in terms of their confidence.
- Those who were privately educated are more confident than those educated in the state sector.
- The most confident students live in the North West of England, the least confident in London.
From the data, the least confident group of all are female, state-educated, final year students reading Social Sciences and living in London.
David Palmer, trendence UK Project Manager said: “The trendence UK Graduate Confidence Index is an important tool to identify groups of students whose confidence (or lack of it) requires a different approach or marketing message. The fall in undergraduates’ confidence is not dramatic but it is steady and mirrors the slow fall in business confidence recorded in other surveys. We are not out of the woods yet. Recruitment prospects for graduates are better but not yet great.”
Details are here.