Students and job-seekers map their future at Curtin Career Fair

Miri – 24 September 2010 – Several hundred students, including those from local secondary schools and institutions of higher learning, as well as working professionals seeking new career opportunities, visited Curtin University, Sarawak Malaysia (Curtin Sarawak)’s Curtin Career Fair 2010 to ‘map their futures’ earlier this week.

A good number of Curtin Sarawak students and alumni from Miri and neighbouring towns also converged on the fair to discover what the exhibitors comprising leading employers in Miri, Kuching, Sibu, West Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and elsewhere had to offer in terms of jobs and career opportunities.

This year’s fair themed ‘Mapping Your Future’ was Curtin Sarawak’s sixth and, according to the organisers, the response from students and working professionals each year has increased substantially largely through continued exposure to the event and word of mouth.

The Careers and Alumni Services section of Curtin Sarawak’s University Life Department, which organised the fair, estimates over 500 visitors attended the fair in the university’s Recreation & Event Centre on 21 and 22 September.

The annual Curtin Career Fair presents an excellent platform for students and job-seekers to network with and seek out job opportunities with leading employers, whose numbers at the fair have also increased over the years.

This year, a total of 27 organisations, including job portals JobStreet and JobsCentral, student exchange programmes Out of the Box and Speedwing, professional bodies and government agencies, participated in the event.

They also included companies in the investment holding, security services, trading, telecommunications, oil and gas, insurance, manpower development and recruitment, hospitality, shipbuilding, timber, power generation, plantation and manufacturing industries.

Apart from participating in the exhibition, they also conducted career talks and preliminary interviews.

On the excellent attendance by Curtin Sarawak graduates and alumni, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Professor Ian Kerr said, “I am very pleased at the response of our graduates towards the event. We are very proud of them and I am confident the employers will be pleased with the calibre of our graduates.”

He said Curtin graduates are expected to embody nine attributes, that is, to be knowledge users, critical and creative thinkers, research smart, effective communicators, technology savvy, life-long learners, international citizens, culturally sensitive and profession wise.

Final-year civil and construction engineering student Nicholas Gala commented, “Having this career fair and bringing potential employers to us every year is a wonderful initiative by the university. It is particularly helpful for final-year students like me, either to seek internship placements or permanent employment on graduation”.

Careers and Alumni Officer Imong Gani meanwhile said, “The Curtin Career Fair provides our students and graduates a platform for networking with and seeking information from employers with regards their current and future recruitment needs. They might not require jobs right away, but by meeting the employers, they can obtain information to map their future careers.”

He added that mapping their future careers involves first determining their career needs, assessing their attributes and qualifications, and identifying the types of industries they plan to venture into, before commencing to explore the career opportunities available.

He advises job-seekers to not limit their career potential to only certain fields or industries; to be a bit bold and adventurous as they could find, by venturing into other areas, their horizons broadened considerably.

For more information on the Curtin Career Fair, log on to www.curtin.edu.my/University%20Life/career_fair.htm, or alternatively, e-mail Imong at imonggani@curtin.edu.my or call +60 85 443 939.

Students obtaining more information from one of the participating employers.

Exhibitor distributing pamphlets to visitors.