Graduate Job market - 2009 . Bleak but there is a ray of hope.

Given the dreary economic out look and the sudden freeze and uncertainty in hiring, I wouldn’t be surprised if you sometimes encounter a feeling of helplessness about landing a good job this year.

The class of 2009 could be facing the bleakest job hunt for a generation now the global financial crisis has taken its toll on traditional graduate employment sectors.

With graduate numbers increasing on an almost annual basis, any failure in the job market to reflect this increase will create a greater level of competition in an already crowded market. As a result, an increasing number of people are moving back in with parents after finishing university and failing to find a graduate job

This means that more students would be graduating this year, while the number of jobs in the offing are far below in comparison. This only means that the competetion
Focusing on the financial services industry (and other companies servicing this industry), some of them like northern rock have completely stopped hiring, other companies ML , UBS , PWC , EY etc have kept recruitment numbers pretty flat.
I feel that numbers are kep flat only to prop up their image on campus. They would also damage their brand by not maintaining contacts on campus and disbanding expert recruitment teams, leading to a corporate loss of memory and skills. To reduce numbers is significantly more favourable than suspending recruitment even for one year.

Which sectors would be recruting this year ?
1. Accountants (It is going to be accountants who have to deal with all the financial fall outs and mergers; Lehman's effectively going under and the HBOS and Lloyds merger ,T-mobile and O2 join venture etc)
2. IT (Banks are restructuring and trying to cut costs by improving IT )
3. Start ups ( best way to put your redundancy pay out to good use)

Ways out of this ?
1. Non traditional Routes –Take up additional course in fincance / accounting to supplement your IT / Management background or vice versa. There are clear signs graduates will need to be more savvy than ever in their hunt for work and not rely on the usual high numbers of vacancies available in previous years
2. Graudate Fairs - Talk to the smaller companies , management consultants and start ups- they are bound to give you more attention.
3. Networking – Obviously ! ! !
4. External Recruitment consultants – Keep chasing them until you get a job.