On the 18th January 2012 On-Campus Promotions ran a session at the National Placement & Internship Awards focusing in on the growing trend in undergraduate recruitment for earlier attraction.
The session featured the findings of a survey of 860 first-year undergraduates, presented by Ali Lindsay and Amber Jones and a panel discussion with first year students, second year students and two recruiters.
It was evident that first-years are becoming increasingly career-oriented, with attendance at university careers fairs up by more than 10% year on year. Moreover, 42% of first-years now plan to gain career-focused work experience in their second year, although only 15% claimed to be ‘very aware’ of the career opportunities open to them. It was also significant that 40% of first-years had chosen their degree discipline because they saw it as directly related to their desired career path – and it also seems apparent that the more vocational their career choice, the more aware they were of the career opportunities open to them. Almost three-quarters (74%) of first-years had signed up to receive university career emails.
It was found that more than half (51%) of first-years spend between one and three hours a day online, and a further third (36%) between four and six hours. 67% of students had smartphones on which they received emails, searched the internet and interacted with social networks.
For a full copy of the results slides, click here to download…
