NUS Career Fest 2022: A hybrid fair to prepare students for the future of work
A new format, the same enthusiasm. The ongoing NUS Career Fest 2022 is adopting a hybrid format with in-person and virtual recruiting happening back to back. What has not changed is the popularity of the annual event.
With safe management measures in place for the physical fair held on 15 and 17 February, students and employers were able to enjoy more personal and in-depth engagement due to a smaller student-employer ratio than in previous fairs. Final year NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences student Claire Mui found the networking meaningful. “Being able to interact one-to-one with employers at the physical fair enables me to better understand the companies and gives me a glimpse of the company culture. It also allows me to network with the employers better,” she shared.
The physical fair – the first at NUS Career Fest since the pandemic started in 2020 – saw enthusiastic participation from employers as well as students and alumni. And there is more. Things are set to get even bigger with over 300 employers at the virtual fair taking place on 22 and 24 February. Companies from over 20 industries are participating in this year’s fair, including finance, consumer goods, and the public sector, as well as high-growth areas such as manufacturing, fintech, information communications technology, and pharmaceutical.
Students will be able to engage with employers online, offering the flexibility for students to schedule appointments and also for employers to reach out to interested students who have registered for the virtual fair.
Students and companies alike have expressed their support for the hybrid format of NUS Career Fest. Halliburton’s Production Group Leader, Mr Wassim Akram Shah, shared, “A hybrid career fair is an innovative way and a good way to start going back to physical events during COVID-19. While there is the physical fair, the virtual fair is also useful so that we can interact with more students in our recruitment efforts.”
“NUS has recently launched two new digital platforms, Internship-As-A-Service (IAAS) and conNectUS, to enable expeditious and direct access to NUS talents. Reimagining NUS Career Fest to support the aspirations of both our students and employers deepens our solidarity with them and demonstrates our commitment to their success,” said Ms Joan Tay, Director, NUS Centre for Future-ready Graduates (NUS CFG).
Besides the employer networking fairs, numerous preparatory workshops have been conducted to help students reap positive employment outcomes. At the “Networking with Confidence” workshop, students not only learnt how to succeed at physical networking events, but were introduced to conNectUS, a professional networking platform that allows them to forge meaningful connections virtually not only with fellow NUS students, but also with our extensive alumni community.
The workshop proved to be informative and enlightening for students who participated. “One of the things that I found useful and liked about the workshop is the structured format. I learnt about how I can start networking, how to continue after that and how to end it,” commented Selvanathan Thayumanavan, a final year NUS Biomedical Engineering student. He added that he appreciated that the workshop “gives a very comprehensive overview of how networking should be done and how it could be helpful to people.”
More information and the full schedule for NUS’ first-ever hybrid Career Fest can be found on the dedicated website.
By NUS Centre for Future-ready Graduates
