Graduates opt for online job hunt - graduate jobs

Graduates are increasingly using the internet to search for jobs and ditching traditional routes such as scouring through newspaper ads, a study reveals.

According to graduate advice website GradFutures, more than nine in 10 university leavers believe searching for jobs online is more effective than browsing through newspapers, with this reflected in modern job-hunting habits.

Websites are easily the most popular destination for graduate job hunters - 70% head online to recruitment sites as their first port of call, while only 3% rely on print media. During their job hunt, the median proportion of graduates' time spent online is 80%, as opposed to just 20% spent offline.

When job hunting, a sizable 67% of graduates barely or never look at advertisements printed in national newspapers, 68% avoid regional or local newspapers, 70% don't bother with industry magazines and 76% barely or never look at ads in student newspapers.

In comparison, nearly eight in 10 graduates (78%) regularly use dedicated graduate recruitment websites in their search for career opportunities, while nearly nine out of 10 (88%) go to employers' own websites, and just over half (56%) say they use general job websites.

Despite these findings, the latest data from the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) shows employers each spent on average £15,000 in 2009 on paper-based ads - the same amount as was spent on online promotions.