Virtual career fair offers students a chance to meet employers

The North-West University (NWU) will host its annual career fair from 4-8 April 2022. The event will be held on an online platform that allows exhibitors (companies) to share more information about graduate opportunities, bursaries and  internships on offer to students and alumni.

The online platform was introduced in 2020 in response to restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. In previous years it was possible to attend the event in person. Because of the pandemic, the organisers used technology to create an interactive, online career fair.

Hloni Putsoane, who is the employer engagement consultant at NWU, stated that “the goals and missions of the event is to continue to expose NWU students to potential employers of the future and most importantly to afford students and graduates an opportunity to engage employers on career-related opportunities. Each exhibiting company gets an allocated booth, similar to how a stand would be set up in a physical environment. The platform is very secure and only registered attendees and exhibitors can participate by logging in remotely.

“Additionally, the platform allows for up to 10 representatives from each exhibiting company to log in at the same time and engage with attendees via live chat embedded into the platform. We have various capacity development interventions, such as interviewing, CV workshops and work-readiness seminars,” Potsoane said.

An article on the North-West University News website states that “the Career Centre has hosted eight career fairs over the years across the three campuses, with 150 organisations participating and 4 000 students in attendance”.

Nkosinathi Mahlangu (24), second-year BCom law student who participated in the event in previous year, said, “I attended the event in 2021, and I found it informative and beneficial to final-year students.” He went on to say that “the event was structured well, they organised it properly, even the website that they used was not a normal one, how they did it was very clever.”

One of the registered participants for the event this year, Kgothatso Seakgosing (23), third-year BSc student in biological sciences with microbiology and biochemistry, said “I am very excited to engage in a platform that will allow me to meet potential future employers and that will allow me to get exposure. I believe this is a great space and opportunity to build a network, not just for the future, but even right now as a current student.”

This year’s event includes exhibitors such as KPMG, Clover, Ernst and Young and Deloitte. Registration for the fair is currently open and students can follow this link to register: https://nwuvirtualcareerfair.easyvirtualfair.com.

More information on the event is available on the Facebook page of the NWU Career Centre.