Glasgow is among leading universities in the UK and Ireland launching TargetedGRAD, a new online recruitment service to rival the dot.com headhunters.

TargetedGRAD will involve more than 20 universities with a potential market of 250,000 students and graduates.

TargetedGRAD will add value to the extensive careers support available through university careers services, helping interested students identify vacancies with a wide range of blue chip companies. Its top-flight system will email vacancies to targeted groups of students and graduates and make sure vacancies satisfy all employment legislation.

The service will also give employers the opportunity to find the right students and graduates quickly and easily.

In addition, it provides a timely response to the recently published Harris Review of Higher Education Careers Services which called on universities work together and to use the latest technology to better meet the needs of students and employers.

TargetedGRAD will be run at each campus by that university's careers service. Students and graduates will register their details with targetedGRAD and be authenticated by their own careers service before being entered onto the central database.

A Central Office based at the University of Manchester & UMIST Careers Service will host the database and provide other services under the management of an Executive Board comprising representatives of all targetedGRAD universities.

A spokesperson explained that targetedGRAD would be a unique product in the recruitment market: "Unlike other dot.coms, targetedGRAD will draw on the support of 100s of careers and academic staff across the country. TargetedGRAD will not be driven by profit, but by the commitment of universities to offer the best possible service to their students and to employers."

Jane Weir ,Director of the Careers Service at the University of Glasgow says: "I am delighted that the we have become a member of targetedGRAD. With a growing number of prestigious companies seeking our graduate talent it makes perfect sense to use targetedGRAD to enhance the service we provide.Now we will be able to offer students easier access to suitable vacancies with the blue chip companies as well as allow employers the chance to target suitable students more quickly and easily."

The universities involved are: Aston, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Imperial, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Trinity College Dublin, UMIST and York. For more information visit http://www.targetedGRAD.co.uk Further information for journalists at

http://www.newsdesk.gla.ac.uk/pressreleases

Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

For more information please contact: Jane Weir on 0141 330 4083 or

the Press Office on 0141 330 3535

Employers willing to speak:

? Stevan Rolls, Director of Recruiting, Andersen, 020 7304 1150

? Sue Polley, Recruitment Adviser, Exxonmobil, 01372 222 000

? Michael Hunting, National Director of Graduate Recruitment, Eversheds, 0121 232 1000

First published: 14 May 2001