(SINGAPORE) Thanks to the global financial crisis, university students - especially those due to graduate next year - are fast coming to terms with the rising difficulty in landing their ideal job.

Companies are still recruiting from campuses but compared with the heady days of 2006 and early 2007, the number and range of jobs available are taking a hit.

This has led to many students coming up with a Plan B - such as staying in school to pursue a Master's degree while waiting for the job market to recover.

According to the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), companies which ran campus recruitment drives in the past have returned this year. These include major banks and financial institutions.

However, there has been a 'reduced number of placements' and the 'types of roles available have changed,' said director of NTU's undergraduate career services, Joyce Seidl-Tan. As the financial crisis unfolds, for instance, more risk management and other mid and back-office functions have opened up.

'Firms are still hiring but very selectively,' observed Jason Low, a 23-year-old accountancy student who is graduating from NTU next year.

The cautious mood contrasts with the bright hiring landscape one or two years ago. An NTU release in June said that nine out of 10 business school graduates last year found jobs before graduation and the top students earned between $8,000 and $15,000 monthly. Of the entire Class of 2007, about two-thirds received multiple job offers.

The continued volatility in financial markets could affect the situation further. While companies kept to their hiring plans for most of the year, 'it was only in October, when the economic volatility hit a peak, that recruiters took a wait-and-see approach to hiring,' said NUS Business School's director of career services, Joan Tay.

'The global financial and economic situation is still uncertain and the job market could decline in all sectors in the coming months,' said director of career services at the Singapore Management University (SMU), Ruth Chiang. 'Students may not receive multiple job offers now and have to be prepared to accept job offers as they come.'

The climate is putting a dampener on wage expectations. 'As employers are confronted with the need to adjust their cost base according to market conditions, salary levels for fresh graduates of 2009 are likely to be lower than the entry level salaries seen in 2007 and possibly in 2008,' said NTU's Mrs Seidl-Tan.

But there is a bright spot amid the gloom. SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business has noticed that the difficult employment market has made graduating students evaluate their future careers more carefully.

'The tough job market... can also be a catalyst to more unconventional career paths which may ultimately be more rewarding,' said Doris Sohmen-Pao, director of SMU's MBA programme.

As NTU's Mr Low put it: 'A lot of people say it's best to start out in a bear market because you get to ride the waves and learn a lot from that.'

Some students though, may prefer to pick up another degree and delay entering the workforce. NUS Business School final-year student Wang Fan, 22, has already applied to several local and overseas universities to pursue his Masters in financial engineering.

This is in the event that his attempts to land his 'ideal' job as a trader with one of the banks here draw a blank. Some banks have already imposed hiring freezes or are retrenching staff.

The school's vice-dean for undergraduate studies, Quek Ser Aik, said that about 20 graduating students have already expressed their wish to use the economic slowdown as an opportunity to further their studies instead of entering the job market.

He said: 'The crisis is surely a concern for our students and for us. We will certainly try our best to accommodate our students' requests should they want to stay on to further their studies.'

As for junior college or polytechnic students entering universities, the financial mayhem is unlikely to sway interest in finance-related degrees, said the local varsities.

'We believe that banking and finance remains a very desirable field to our students and those who are keen on this area would probably not be deterred,' said Valerie Du Toit-Low, associate dean of undergraduate business in NTU.

SMU's Mrs Sohmen-Pao also said that postgraduate programmes, such as those related to management and finance, would retain their market value with or without a financial crisis.

'Skills such as leadership, strategic management and finance will remain evergreen and relevant to any profit organisation across any industry. We are optimistic that subscription for postgraduate programmes will remain strong even while the market goes on the road to recovery'.