‘I’ve applied for 80 jobs’: The Leeds students trying to fix a ‘broken’ grad job market

As the graduate job hunt feels increasingly challenging, six University of Leeds students have developed a platform they hope will transform the “broken” application process.

Their site, GradFlow, has recently been shortlisted as a finalist for the UK StartUp Awards 2025 for the North East, Yorkshire and The Humber region.

The team, aged between 21 and 23, built the platform they say they wished had been around when they were applying for their graduate roles and internships.

In 2023 and 2024 the GradFlow team, like many other students across the UK, submitted over 500 applications between them and received countless rejections.

Aiming to streamline and organise the job hunt, their startup allows students to track every application, test, interview and rejection in one place. Using data-driven analytics, it highlights patterns to help users understand where they’re going wrong.

Hemant Smart, co-founder and head of product design, told The Leeds Tab about the personal experiences that motivated GradFlow’s development.

Hemant leading a workshop at the University of Leeds

In his second and third year at university, he applied for 85 jobs in total.

Hemant said: “It was honestly chaotic. I was constantly juggling deadlines, tracking everything in messy spreadsheets, and spending hours trying to figure out where I went wrong after each rejection.

“It felt like there was no system, no feedback loop, and no real way to improve without burning out.”

He was most discouraged by how repetitive the process became. He cited being “ghosted” by recruiters, losing track of which CV he’d used for which job, and sometimes forgetting he’d applied somewhere altogether.

“When I spoke to friends, everyone had the same problem. It wasn’t just me; it was a broken process,” he added.

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Hemant explained that this was when the idea for GradFlow started to take shape. He talked to friends about practical ways to fix the system, rather than just lamenting the difficulties of navigating it.

“We realised students don’t need another job board. They need a system to help them stay on top of applications, learn from failures and stay motivated,” he said.

The GradFlow team also hold workshops for students, explaining how to secure summer internships and placement years, and offering insider tips to stand out in competitive applications.

Beyond the platform, they want to create a student-focused community built around career advice and relatable content through memes and student stories.

One of those stories is Lorenzo Tassellari, who is studying a Master’s in computer science and maths.

He told The Leeds Tab he’s applied to 80 jobs this year. About 70 of those applications have resulted in either a rejection or no response from the hiring company.

Even when he has made it to interview stages, he said he still hasn’t received “any real feedback”.

Originally from Italy, Lorenzo used to joke with his family about attending a Rusell Group university in the UK, assuming this would mean finding a job in his field would be relatively straightforward. “I was quite surprised to learn that wasn’t the case,” he said.

The student explained how time-consuming he finds applications, “especially when some of them require three or four hours just for the first stage”.

“It can be very draining,” he added.

Freya Owen, a fourth-year German law student, told The Leeds Tab she’s had similar experiences whilst searching for a graduate job.

Every rejection she’s received has been an automated response. She doesn’t know where she’s going wrong because companies receive such a high volume of applications that they don’t provide personalised feedback.

She said she’s spent up to seven hours a day on applications, and has been required to write 1,800 words of answers for some roles.

Freya continued: “When you go to a Russell Group university, you’re told by other people that you’ll go far and finding a job will be easy, but in reality it’s so difficult.

“At one graduate scheme, they told me at the assessment centre that 1,000 people made it to this stage, and over 8,000 people applied.”

She finds staying motivated especially difficult and hates the uncertainty surrounding her future.

Freya said she attended an assessment centre for a job application in March, after applying in November, and won’t have another interview until May. Another job she applied to in November doesn’t hold its assessment centre until June, meaning she feels as though she can’t “plan for the future”.

Hemant added: “[GradFlow] is really about taking randomness out of the process. Instead of guessing, we want students to have clarity and structure. The goal isn’t just to help you apply. It’s to help you get the offer.”

You can access the GradFlow platform here.