Eight out of ten graduates only search for jobs online.

This is according to a new survey from Reed Employment which found that just 3% scour the newspaper for openings with 18% relying on recruitment agencies and 8% applying in person.

A whopping 80% also claim to be avid users of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

Fifty-seven per cent admitted to spending less than an hour researching jobs; 18% allocate between one and two hours; with just 15% spending over two hours. A shocking 9% said they simply turn up at interviews, without having researched the company at all.

Candidates lay the blame at the employer’s door. Half said they were not given enough information before their interviews. The kinds of information most in demand were details about training and development opportunities (40%); the office location and surrounding amenities (17%); the office culture (15%), and the salary on offer (12%).

Stephen Harrison, operations manager at Reed Graduates said: “The Facebook generation of graduates clearly is more receptive to receiving information online than in print format. To attract top graduates, businesses will need to rethink the ways in which they recruit ensuring that online recruitment and perhaps even social networking sites are included. Equally, they may wish to introduce innovative new mediums such as video recruitment as part of their strategy.”