The job-hunting season for university students went into full swing on Dec. 1 as major enterprises started recruiting students who are scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2014. Students are likely to increase their chances of finding good jobs if they explore employment opportunities at small and medium companies as well as at the major companies traditionally viewed as the most desirable employers.

Students and companies should strive to make the best of the opportunities for both during the recruitment period. It is hoped that public employment security offices and universities will do their best to help students find jobs most suitable for them.

The employment situation for university students was extremely difficult in the periods that followed the burst of the economic bubble in the early 1990s and the Lehman Brothers shock of 2008. But the recent situation looks slightly better. According to the labor and education ministries, 63.1 percent of university students scheduled to graduate in the spring of 2013 found jobs as of Oct. 1 — an increase of 3.2 percentage points from the same date in 2011 and an increase for two consecutive years. But it must be remembered that nearly 40 percent of them have not found work.