Graduates are struggling in the current job market, as graduate jobs are declining. However, what can we learn from Cardiff students who have gone through the process of hunting jobs? Cardiff University student Shayna is one example.

As her course was coming to an end, she could finally see the future she had always hoped for. Shayna had landed a job at Barclays after applying to more than 150 jobs in just three months, all while completing her dissertation at Cardiff University, showing the hard work and sheer number of applications it takes for students to get job security. Shayna’s story is a bright spot in a bleak year for UK graduates.

According to Indeed’s 2025 Labour Market Update, graduate job postings are now at their lowest level since 2018, with a 33% annual drop. The total number of job listings in the UK is now below pre-pandemic levels with graduate role advertisements having fallen by more than 10%. In discussions surrounding her many applications, she said: “Waking up every day to five rejection emails is tough, but you must keep going.

The reality of the graduate job market paints a grim picture

It’s not personal, you never know when the next application will be the one.” As competition is intensifying, a typical graduate job vacancy now receives around 140 applicants, almost a 60% increase from the previous year, according to Institute of Student Employers. Graduate roles have significantly dropped in banking, finance, accounting, and software companies since 2019. In this tight graduate job market, Shayna’s race against the clock began late. “I didn’t even start applying until three months before graduation,” she says. “At first, I would apply on LinkedIn and get rejections almost immediately.” But with mounting visa deadline pressure, her mother stepped in from India to help.

Shayna says her mother took charge of going to LinkedIn and started sending applications on her behalf so that she could focus on her dissertation. Fortunately, sending in lots of applications before completing the course helped her, she landed an opportunity through a recruitment agency named Inspire Talent which placed her at Barclays as a Java developer. Shayna says that she was not the most technically advanced in her class, but her previous job at EY had taught her valuable communication and problemsolving skills which helped her navigate interviews. “In interviews, I reasoned through problems, talked about alternatives and showed how I think.” Shayna, says that out of her 50 classmates, only 8 to 10 have landed full-time jobs.

She told us how one peer lost hope after submitting more than 500 applications and returned to China. Another applied to over 600 positions and received just two interview offers. While Shayna’s journey was fast and exciting, Rohit, another Cardiff University graduate, endured a much longer struggle.

After completing a master's in computing in 2024, he spent over a year applying to jobs, but to no luck. “Each application wasn’t just a click, it took hours”, he says. “You would do assessments, interviews, tailor everything, and still get rejected. It was exhausting.” At one point, Rohit paused his job hunt for two to three months due to burnout. After tailoring CVs and cover letters to apply for more than 300 jobs over a year, Rohit finally landed a job in London.

What eventually changed things for him was not a job portal, it was networking. He attended an AI summit in Cardiff and met someone working at Tech Mahindra, where, luckily, his uncle also worked. With both referring him, Rohit finally got his break as a product engineer. “It’s a combination of luck and consistency”, he says, “building connections really made a difference”.

Since he had a background of mechanical engineering, he lacked prior experience in computing, but Rohit says his ability to communicate effectively became an asset. “There are times when communication matters more than your skillset. If you can clearly explain what you know, that can outweigh inexperience.” This case exemplifies that whilst jobs are declining, applicants are only increasing; the reality of the graduate job market paints a grim picture.