The great graduate divide: Why the job hunt is a struggle for some fresh graduates

By all accounts, Ho was a model job seeker.

The 25-year-old, who graduated at the top of his cohort from a local university, had completed four internships at companies including DBS Bank. He also attended about 10 career fairs and networking events, and sent out more than 300 resumes in his bid to land a role in the finance sector.

He heard back from only about 10 companies, reached the final interview stage five times – and is still looking for his first full-time job.

Meanwhile, the experience of one pharmacy graduate, who wanted to be known only as Ong, could hardly have been more different.

In April, the 24-year-old began applying for pre-registration training positions – a mandatory step before obtaining his licence to practise. Aside from attending a recruitment talk organised by his university, he did little else.

Every hospital he applied to made him an offer. Similarly, many of his coursemates also received job offers on the same day as their interviews, with some getting offers on the spot, he said.

Ho and Ong’s experiences reflect two very different realities facing recent graduates.

Some submit hundreds of applications, only to be ghosted, strung along or rejected. Others describe the process as almost seamless and effortless.

The contrast reflects a labour market where jobs are available, but not necessarily in the sectors that many graduates aspire to join.

Data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) shows there are enough entry-level professional, managerial, executive and technician (PMET) jobs to absorb new graduates.

About 25,000 to 30,000 degree holders enter the workforce each year, while the number of entry-level vacancies has remained relatively stable at more than 32,000 in recent quarters.

The catch is where those jobs are.

Some industries consistently offer far more entry-level opportunities than others. These include public administration and education, health and social services, and the construction and manufacturing sectors, where there are many engineering and quantity-surveying jobs.

Although vacancy numbers fluctuate from quarter to quarter depending on hiring timelines and recruitment practices, the share of entry-level roles within each sector has remained broadly consistent over time.

Public admin and education stands out as the industry with the most entry-level jobs

The most fresh-graduate-friendly sectors are public administration and education, as well as health and social services, where more than half of the vacancies are suitable for applicants with little or no work experience.

Manufacturing, construction, transportation and storage, food and beverage services, and administrative and support services also provide relatively strong opportunities, with more than four in 10 vacancies open to entry-level applicants.

At the other end of the spectrum are the information and communications (infocomm), and financial and insurance services sectors – two industries that many graduates aspire to join for their higher starting pay, attractive perks and strong career prospects.

But, according to the latest MOM data for the first quarter of 2026, only 22.2 per cent of vacancies in the infocomm sector are entry-level roles. The figure is 25.3 per cent for financial and insurance services.

For fresh graduates set on entering these sectors, breaking in is much harder.

Entry-level job vacancies are available, but there are not as many in graduates’ preferred sectors

Derrick Teo, chief executive of manpower consultancy Elitez Group, told The Straits Times: “The graduate job market is still active, but it is more uneven and selective compared with two or three years ago.”

The mismatch is particularly evident in the infocomm sector, where the post-pandemic hiring boom has cooled.

First-quarter vacancies in the sector surged from about 4,600 in 2020 to 11,700 in 2022, before falling to around 5,300 in the first quarter of 2026.

Of those 5,300 vacancies, only about 1,200 are suitable for entry-level applicants.

In 2020, that would have been almost enough to accommodate the 1,367 information technology graduates. But by 2024, the number of IT graduates had almost doubled to 2,694, according to data from the Ministry of Education, making competition much more intense.

Rising number of IT graduates intensifies competition for jobs

Christian Wolfrum, deputy president and provost of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), said that while enrolment in computing-related programmes has grown in recent years, there is no “structural oversupply” of tech graduates yet, as demand for digital talent remains broad across the economy.

Other academics similarly told ST that universities and polytechnics regularly review their intake number with MOE in response to industry demand, and they believe the economy will continue to generate enough demand to absorb these graduates.

Even so, the balance of power has shifted.

While computing students used to receive multiple job offers even before graduation, many now take longer to secure their first role, said Li Xiaoli, head of the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

With a larger pool of candidates to choose from, companies have the “luxury of selecting the very best”, he said.

Gary, 26, a recent computer science graduate, said employers have become far more selective even when hiring interns.

As internships have become almost a prerequisite for full-time jobs, more students are vying for multiple stints to beef up their resumes.

That has made competition stiffer for everyone. Final-year students who need internships to fulfil graduation requirements now compete against not only their peers, but also their juniors.

“Quite a number of students did capstone projects in place of internships because they couldn’t find one,” Gary said, referring to final-year projects where students apply what they have learnt.

He felt his coursemates’ resulting lack of real-world experience would put them at a further disadvantage when looking for jobs.

That was why he decided to “bite the bullet” and grab any internship opportunity that came his way – “even if it’s an SME, or if I see Glassdoor reviews that aren’t so great”. Glassdoor is a jobs and recruiting platform where current and former employees can anonymously review their companies.

Academics and human resources experts broadly agree that the hiring environment is more competitive now than two to three years ago, with more graduates having to take up temporary or contract roles as stepping stones towards a full-time gig.

Employers are increasingly looking for candidates who can “demonstrate practical experience, specific skills, adaptability and readiness to contribute from the outset”, said Susanna Leong, deputy president (academic) and provost at Singapore Institute of Technology.

At the same time, said Prasanthi Guda, acting director of career and employability services at Singapore Management University’s (SMU) Dato’ Kho Hui Meng Career Centre, employers are also hiring more cautiously in response to economic uncertainty, geopolitical developments and rapid technological change.

But employers are not the only ones being choosy. Even in a tougher job market, many graduates remain selective about where they apply.

History graduate Samantha, 23, and communication design graduate Shankar, 24, prefer a more targeted approach, relying on personal connections for job leads and applying only for positions they know they want.

Yan Ni, a banking and finance diploma graduate, is also taking her time. She has applied for only three compliance jobs in the finance sector. If she does not secure one, she plans to further her studies.

“The reality is that many companies value a university degree, especially in the finance sector,” the 19-year-old said.

Others like mechanical engineering graduate Umair are holding out for a better job with higher pay. The 26-year-old, who has sent out over 100 resumes, is avoiding construction sector jobs, believing these offer lower starting pay and limited career progression.

Calvin Chung, assistant chief executive for JTC’s engineering and operations group, told ST that attracting fresh graduates to the built environment sector, which encompasses construction, engineering and related fields, remains challenging, especially as enrolment in these courses has been declining.

“The perception problem is real, as younger students see the sector as traditional, physically demanding and slow to change, especially when compared with industries like tech and finance,” he said.

“The reality is actually different, where engineers today work with sophisticated digital tools on impactful projects,” he added.

According to a School-to-Work Transition Study conducted by MOM in 2025, most of the 2,500 recent graduates surveyed expected a higher starting salary than the actual median pay in their respective disciplines. The exceptions were graduates in law, education, and fine and applied arts.

The mismatch was especially pronounced among graduates in information technology, business, and the natural and mathematical sciences.

Graduates from most disciplines expect higher salaries than the actual median pay

Gary, the computer science graduate, said the promise of high starting salaries was what drew many of his coursemates to the field.

Many had looked at the Graduate Employment Survey, which is based on graduates’ self-reported earnings, and expected more than $5,000 a month for their first job. But recent job postings suggest that employers are paying around $4,000, Gary said.

SUTD’s Li said it is common for students, especially the most competent and ambitious ones, to aim for high-paying jobs at companies such as Google or OpenAI. But he added that they should be “realistic” as tech multinational companies are becoming more cautious about their headcount.

Low wages a top reason why graduates refuse job offers

Shamim Akhtar, a course chair at Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Informatics and IT, also urged students to be more open-minded in their job search.

“We should not be fixated on roles in tech companies,” he said, adding that tech talent is also in high demand among financial institutions, government agencies and healthcare organisations in Singapore.

Recent data points in the same direction. According to the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s Singapore Digital Economy Report 2025, demand for technology professionals is expected to grow faster in non-tech firms than in tech firms.

“Everyone needs IT, so you have to open your mind and explore other areas as well,” said Akhtar.

As if competing against hundreds of other graduates was not challenging enough, many young job seekers are worried about the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence.

Outside of sectors such as health and social services, where graduates generally believe their “human-centric” jobs are less vulnerable to automation, concerns about AI replacing junior roles are growing – particularly among those hoping to enter some knowledge-based industries.

AI adoption highest among firms in infocomm sector

According to MOM’s latest survey, AI adoption was highest among firms in the infocomm sector at 74.1 per cent, followed by 57.5 per cent in professional services and 56.4 per cent in the financial and insurance services.

But the same survey suggests AI is, for now, changing how work is done rather than eliminating jobs. Just 6.2 per cent of firms that adopted AI reported reducing either headcount or hiring because of the technology.

That matches the observations by some industry watchers.

Callam Pickering, senior economist for APAC at global job search and hiring platform Indeed, said demand for graduates has picked up considerably in the first five months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Around 80 per cent of those opportunities are in occupations that are highly exposed to AI-driven transformation.

“This is not yet a market where recent graduates need to compromise,” he said.

Sharon Tan, vice-dean (industry relations) at the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing, said AI adoption will create “a strong need for professionals who can design, build, evaluate and deploy these systems responsibly and effectively”.

Still, universities are increasingly embedding AI into existing curricula or developing AI-focused degrees to future-proof their students’ careers.

At SMU, all incoming computer science students take AI Fundamentals as a core course, said Pang Hwee Hwa, vice-provost (postgraduate professional education) and the former dean of the School of Computing and Information Systems.

The university has also revamped its software development course into Human-AI Collaborative Software Development, where students learn high-level design, software architecture and code review, while AI handles raw code generation and bug fixing.

At NTU, besides infusing AI fundamentals across courses, the College of Computing and Data Science also works with industry partners, including Accenture, NCS and ST Engineering, to keep its programmes aligned with evolving workforce needs, said Wolfrum.

For students, it is important to demonstrate that they can use AI properly and effectively, said Temasek Polytechnic’s Akhtar.

Students should learn to build applications using large language model application programming interfaces, document their development process on platforms such as GitHub and show employers how AI enhances their work.

“Employers are looking at how you augment your thinking, rather than let AI replace your thinking,” he said.

For many graduates, the bigger frustration for now is not AI taking their jobs, but AI deciding whether they get a chance to be interviewed.

Several said the growing use of AI to screen resumes has made the hiring process feel even more opaque, with applications disappearing into what feels like a “black hole”.

Mechanical engineering graduate Devina Nash Ganasen, 24, submitted some 100 resumes in 2025 and tracked the status of every application on a spreadsheet.

Like many graduates, she often found herself waiting for responses that never came.

“Sometimes they didn’t even follow up with an e-mail, which made it hard for me to keep track,” she said.

She secured a job with statutory board JTC after three months, but said the uncertainty throughout the process was stressful.

“It definitely felt like a race. A lot of the pressure came from myself,” she said.

Some graduates like Gary have accepted that getting a recruiter’s response is not a given.

Since January, he has sent out around 150 applications for mainly software engineering roles and attended six interviews. He received one verbal offer, but has not heard from the company for almost two months.

“I manage my expectations, so I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t get a reply.

“If I don’t hear from them within two or three weeks, I just assume they’ve moved on with another candidate,” he said, adding that he will keep looking until he receives and signs the contract.