Students who are now starting to apply for next year's graduate training programmes will find it a very competitive market, though recruitment agencies can help. Some graduate schemes are hard to get into, as graduates are having to face assessments before gaining employment. Most programmes are offering timed aptitude tests, numerical tests, psychometric tests, competency based interviews and even residential assessment centres where group exercised and presentations occur.

Some graduates however, are lucky. A Loughborough University computing and management graduate, Matt Tasker said: "It is a long, hard process but you just have to keep going at it. I applied to around seven schemes and so, for a time, in the flat I was sharing with four others, there were a lot of phone interviews going on. We used to put a sign up on the door saying 'phone interview, do not disturb.'"

When leaving university, people have to be persistent by applying to a variety of programmes rather than just one or two. Using agencies will help graduates more than going it alone, though doing both will ensure maximum effort is being made on the graduates part.

Next year will be extremely competitive next year, despite the improving economic state, final year students will be up against last years unsuccessful graduates as well as peers in their own year.
John Morewood, senior graduate recruitment development manager at HSBC said: "It will be competitive, in 2010 HSBC is expecting to take about 216 graduates on to its UK retail and investment banking graduate programmes. Normally, they attract about 20 applications for each place."