We’ve been reaching out to employers to hear their thoughts at this early stage about the impact of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic on their student and graduate recruitment this year.

There are still lots of unknowns and uncertainties and – as is the case for all of us – things are changing day by day for these organisations.  Keeping that in mind, here are some key takeaways:

• Lots of large employers are still focusing on their future talent and aiming to continue recruiting, even if numbers of vacancies might drop in the short term.
• Employers are anticipating this to be a shock to the system but expect it to be a short, deep recession with vacancies bouncing back quickly
• It looks like some Insights days/weeks (which would traditionally run in the next month or so) for early years students are being cancelled, others are being postponed or moved online
• Lots of employers still moving candidates through their recruitment processes (for both internships and grad roles) but moving those to virtual platforms and assessments. More on this in a later blog post.
• The situation for summer internships and placements is mixed. Some businesses are, with reluctance, looking at potentially rescinding offers, where others are looking at remote working options and others are keeping almost business as usual.
• For graduate roles, the outlook generally seems positive, with most employers continuing to recruit at the moment – but different sectors and parts of the business may see drops.
• Where offers are less certain, there is potential for start dates being pushed back, hours to be reduced or students being offered compensation for a rescinded offer (if it comes to that). More on this in a later blog post.

 So to summarise: we’re hearing that many graduate recruiters are continuing with their recruitment as planned as far as possible. Some are moving parts or all of their processes online.

We’ll share more with you in the weeks and months to come, so keep following.  And find out more about how we can support you at this time, and what you can be doing, in our FAQs here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/careers/about-us/coronavirus-faqs

 

 

 

Mar 25, 2020

(image CC0 by Qimono on Pixabay )

(image CC0 by Qimono on Pixabay )

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