By Naeemah Munirah Abdullah
GOMBAK, 2 April 2015: The annual Career Fair is around the corner. It’s a great opportunity you shouldn’t miss. Known as ‘Internship & Career Fair 2015,’ the event is scheduled to be held from 7 to 8 April at the Cultural Activity Centre (CAC), IIUM.
This event is organised by Alumni and Career Services Division (ACSD) with the cooperation of the Office of Industrial Links.
“The main objective of the Fair is to put together the potential employers for graduating students as well as to give opportunities to third year students to get placement or create awareness of potential employers whom they can do their internship with,” said Deputy Director of ACSD, Dr. Khadijah Mohd Isa.
Many students are expected to graduate in May. Thus, it is hoped that the event will be a good avenue for the students. Dr. Khadijah has encouraged students to bring along their printed curriculum vitae (CVs) or resume’ when they come to the Fair.
Currently there are about 30 companies that have confirmed participation in the event. Therefore, students may just leave their CVs at the booth and hopefully something can come out from there.
“Most of them are private companies. When we did our invitation, we have classified according to the needs and interests of the Kulliyyah, so all Kulliyyah will have their potential employers,” added Dr. Khadijah.
Besides the companies, postgraduate study offers will also be provided by various entities: the Graduate School of Management (GSM) under KENMS, the Azman Hashim Law Centre under AIKOL, and the Institute for Language Advancement (IfLA).
The Management Services Division (MSD) will open a booth to hire those who wish to join the university as staffs or employees either in the area of Human Resource, Safety or Health.
The target audiences of this event are the IIUM students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, especially the third year students for their internship and the final year students for employment purpose. Currently the total number of students in the third and fourth year is about 7000. From that number, it is expected that some fifty percent of that would come and participate in the Fair.
“Our students do have good credits among the employers out there, so they want to come and promote here,” Dr. Khadijah further added.
There will also be an exhibition and clinics conducted separately during the two days. There will also be career assessment and planning provided by Counselling Department whereby a psychometric test will be conducted to see the attributes that the students have and the career which suit them most.
The ACSD Deputy Director made it clear that the event is also for the first and second year students. She believed that they should be exposed to the knowledge on career path from the beginning, and not to wait until they are in their final year. Thus, everyone from all levels of study is encouraged to attend this Internship and Career Fair 2015.
Among other activities would be CV checks conducted by GTI-Media Asia (Graduate to Industry) group. For students who are ready with their CVs, they will see whether the resume’ meet the criteria set by the company. There will also be grooming clinic, resume’ clinic and interview clinic, reaching out where representatives from selected companies would give brief talks to share their experiences, and conduct a walk-in interview session.
Commenting on the previous career fair feedback, Dr. Khadijah said the number of participants was quite low last time and that disappointed the companies. Therefore, this time the organisers are working very hard for the publicity and promotion. They are also working together with the deans to arrange on how students can come during class time.
“Be prepared on 7 and 8 April to come to CAC. It’s not that we want to force you, but it’s for your own benefit,” Dr. Khadijah emphasised.
In Tracer Study conducted by the research team of ACSD, there is a study on graduate employability.
“We want our students to have 80% employment rate. It means that after students graduated, 80% of them are already employed within the first six months before convocation. Currently we are not there yet but we are not so far away to reach that, looking at all universities in general,” Dr. Khadijah continued to elaborate.
She said if we are looking at graduates, Kulliyyah by Kulliyyah, there are certain Kulliyyah with low employment rate and certain Kulliyyah with high employment rate. Therefore, through a career fair like this, ACSD hoped to help the university to close the gap, and of course, it would be greater if it can go beyond 80%. More emphasis is to be given on the Kulliyyah with lower employment rate for students to benefit.
The same event will be conducted in IIUM Kuantan Campus for three days beginning 12 until 14 April 2015. It is hoped that the same objective will be achieved.***