Industry Research

GCA Student Job Seeker Survey

In late 2001, Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) and the National Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (NAGCAS) teamed up to conduct a national online survey of student job-seeker behaviour. The aim of the project was to conduct a survey of student job-seeking habits for students from all universities across the country and the survey appeared on the Graduate Careers Australia website over three weeks in November 2001. It was promoted to students via university Careers Services and Graduate Careers Australia itself.

The survey was the first study of this scale to survey students from all Australian tertiary institutions in relation to job-seeking behaviours and generated responses from over 4000 students with 47 per cent in their final year, 26.7 per cent in their penultimate year and 26.3 per cent in other year levels.

Survey results are broken down into the following categories:

• Key characteristics of online, job-seeking students
• The job-seeking cycle
• High impact communication methods
• Internet usage patterns
• Newspaper readership habits
• Maximising recruitment strategies
• Becoming a modern 'employer of choice'
• Driving recruitment campaign effectiveness
• Building employment brand awareness
• Leveraging the University Careers Centre and maximising their website
• Harnessing direct email campaigns
• Additional university relationships of influence
• Creating a competitive advantage
• Online recruiting tools: What students want