Graduate Destination Survey overview

The Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) collects information about graduate employment outcomes and previous employment, continuing study and work-seeking status, work-seeking behaviour, past education and key respondent characteristics (e.g. recent qualifications, age, sex, residency status, etc.).

The GDS is administered as part of the AGS Questionnaire and appears alongside the CEQ or PREQ (the former distributed to coursework graduates and the latter to research award graduates).  The instrument is administered in an online, hard-copy and/or telephone mode.

The survey uses reference dates that create consistency for time-sensitive answers. There are currently two reference dates: 31 October for graduates completing in the first half of the preceding year, and 30 April for graduates completing in the second half of the preceding year. The survey is subsequently conducted in two rounds around the approximate time of these reference dates.