According to the joint Graduate Employment Survey conducted by SMU, NUS and NTU, the employment rate of SMU graduates was 92.3 per cent, up slightly by 0.6 per cent. Average starting salaries rose only for SMU students. They went up to $3,455, breaking the previous year’s record of $3,395. This was the second time that SMU students have scored a record high for average starting salaries. SMU accountancy graduate Hu Song Yun said that he joined an overseas investment bank as an analyst immediately after graduation last June. He said that his job search was quite smooth, because he had applied to do an internship at this bank for 10 weeks when he was in year three, and he had performed well during his internship. But he had to go through five rounds of interviews to get a chance to intern at the bank.