With the economy in a sorry state and a high rate of unemployment, it’s often said that finding graduate jobs is more difficult now than it’s ever been. Industry surveys and reports from websites like reed.co.uk give month-by-month anaylsis against the (scarier) government numbers, but how bad have things really got?

Recent unemployment figures for graduate students revealed that 1 in 5 of recent graduates were without work in the final quarter of 2010. This is double the amount before the recession. In a separate report the Office for National Statistics reported that for every specific graduate job, such as a graduate scheme that may have a training element involved, there were 45 students for every post. In terms of just law training contracts, this figure could be double or even triple.

That said, it’s not all doom and gloom. Yet another set of statistics that focussed on the individual employment rates of graduates from specific universities showed that there are ways round the problem. As one would expect Cambridge and Oxford figured highly, but the top of the chart were two surprising institutions telling different stories.

The first was the London School of Pharmacy which has 100% student employment. Obviously this is a specialist field, and recruiters know exactly what they’re getting from a graduate, so one key is to specialise early, and pick institutions that are geared towards certain professions.

The other institution was the University of Surrey, which posted an astonishing 96.9%. The reason for this is that the University has a long tradition of encouraging its students to take years in industry. This model means that students graduate with genuine hands on experience in a certain sector, and of course that they’ve already built up a good working relationship with an employer. Priceless in the current jobs market.

For current students then, it’s fairly apparent that if you have the opportunity to take a year in industry through your course, you should do it. Four year courses are becoming increasingly common with many science and maths degrees offering the opportunity to extend a three year course to a four year Masters without having to reapply.

If you don’t happen to have the opportunity to take a year in industry, then those summer internships are absolutely vital; in the current market there is no replacement for work experience and even if you get an internship in a profession which you’re not so keen on, the fact that you showed the ‘get up and go’ to track one down will impress any prospective employer.