Get out of my space! Construction undergraduates don’t want to engage with recruiters via social media.

20th June 2012

Nearly 400 construction and civil engineering undergraduates from the UK’s top universities were surveyed recently by the leading graduate careers site, targetjobsconstruction.co.uk, and only a third said they wanted to actively engage with their future employers via social media.

The survey results were revealed at the annual TARGETjobs Construction Employers Forum, held at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London and attended by regular construction recruiters like Jacobs, G+T, AMEC, Mott MacDonald, BAM Construct and the hosts ICE.

In an age of increasing connectivity and a steady growth in the personal use of social media, it’s perhaps surprising that so many students were reluctant to welcome employers into their social spaces. The construction industry, it’s fair to say, is not as advanced as other recruitment sectors like finance and law in the use of social media to promote opportunities to and engage with students so this situation may change in the future. Although they were happier with the use of social media to promote vacancies, they were less keen on more active use by recruiters.

A civil engineering student from the University of Manchester said:

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate. I don't see the need for companies to get in contact via social media. Phone and email is enough.”

And a civil and environmental engineering student from Nottingham said:

“It makes the job feel unprofessional. It would allow employers to judge you based on your social circles and contacts.”

Students studying construction and civil engineering degrees are a resilient lot with 52 per cent saying that the negative image of the industry in the media would not put them off applying for jobs in the sector and two-thirds either neutral or positive about their chances of employment after graduation. Set against the fact that other sectors interested in poaching engineers like finance and consulting can offer higher salaries, there is no evidence that engineers are having their heads turned in great numbers.

Students also called for more internship opportunities and many complained about the increasing complexity of application processes.

Chris Phillips, Publishing Director at GTI Media said:

“This is a body of students who are pretty committed and generally optimistic about their futures in the industry even though it’s not in the best shape at the moment. They seem, however, to be more traditional than other student groups in terms of how they want to engage with recruiters, most being either neutral or negative about the use of social media to do anything more than merely to publicise vacancies.”

– Ends –

Notes to Editors

• The survey was live for a two/three week period in late April 2012.
• There were 393 respondents to the student survey, most studying civil engineering.
• At the same time, a companion survey of recent graduates working in construction was undertaken by TARGETjobs.co.uk and the reports from both the student and recent graduate survey are available to download from gtimedia.co.uk.
• GTI Media are the people behind leading graduate careers and jobs targetjobs.co.uk, the Guardian UK 300 and GET directories as well as the TARGETjobs series of sector publications, including TARGETjobs Construction, QS & Civil Engineering.  GTI Media also publishes Careers Guides for 25 leading universities in the UK and Ireland. It is part of the international Group GTI, the largest graduate careers publisher in Europe.
• For more information on GTI Media visit gtimedia.co.uk

For further information on the survey, please contact:

Rachel Cox, Marketing Manager at TARGETjobs
T: 01491 828925
E: rachel.cox@targetjobs.co.uk

For further comment about the story, please contact:

Chris Phillips, Publishing Director
T: 01491 826262.
E: chris.phillips@targetjobs.co.uk