Assisting International Students
We are not the first universities to enter into offering careers fairs abroad, however approaching as a partnership was both more realistic and more advantageous than entering China as four separate fairs. It provided us with so many more opportunities to increase the employability of our students, including GW4 networking opportunities for the students, a wider pool of employers, less outgoings for individual institutions and the ability to split the workload reducing the time constraints on already stretched careers and employability services. The most significant challenge we faced was distance; four busy diaries and the M4/ M5 to negotiate. We utilised Google Hangouts, Skype and met remotely as often as was feasible, allowing us to have regular contact without it becoming too intensive on diaries.
The event took place at the Fairmont Peace Hotel in Shanghai on Saturday 19th September 2015.
As an inaugural event, the fair was very much a pilot, designed to act as a proof of concept for potential future events. The initial ambitions for the fair were to attract 12 employers and 200 recent graduates to the pilot event - targets which were exceeded at an early stage. We had 20 employers registered to attend – a 60% increase, and 400 students – a 100% increase. Limitations on venue capacity were evident once bookings rolled in. We now know we can realistically increase this significantly and will be occupying a larger venue(s) going forward; the venue was conservative whilst we tested the appetite which we can now build on. Considering this is our inaugural event, it demonstrates just how attractive our graduates are to prospective employers and the growing reputation GW4 universities have around the world for developing the most employable graduates.
Somewhat differently to most of our on campus events, the fair was open to alumni from the four universities who
had graduated in academic year 2014/15 and also to 2014/15 finalists. 100 places were allocated to each institution and a combined waiting list of 100 places was established. Within one week of contacting the target groups all places on the fair were booked and within another week the waiting list was also full. Of those registered, 94% attended. The pilot far exceeded expectations and will undoubtedly experience growth for 2016, potentially seeing multiple venues in China and allowing us to adequately service our students outside of the UK. Employers attending included EY, Apple, Unilever, HSBC, IBM, Mott Macdonald and ACCA, not exclusively, with more already making enquiries into our 2016 event.
Feedback Of the students that completed the post-event student feedback survey 93% said they intended to apply to companies they had met at the fair (EY, HSBC, Mars and Unilever being the most popular). Within two weeks of the fair, 21% had indicated that they had (or had scheduled) an interview with at least one of the employers at the fair; which, compared to the turnaround of UK graduate recruitment applications, is very impressive.
The precise impact is difficult to measure but the partnership is confident that the event exceeded expectations. There is a clear appetite from both employers and students/graduates for such events, as was shown by the levels of interest (with very little in terms of promotion) from both groups. As the climate for international students to stay in the UK beyond graduation becomes increasingly difficult, facilitating opportunities for employment in their home countries becomes all the more important. Embarking on international fairs is costly, as factors we do not encounter for home events, need to be accounted for (such as flights). However, the impact is evident when you see the post-event ‘noise’ on
WeChat and other Chinese mediums. As Employability Manager, I like to ensure I have at least one new concept to focus on at any given time. I work best when I work creatively and when I am working on an innovative project for the university. Working with three Heads of Service of top universities has been both insightful and developmental, allowing me to improve personally, whilst also enabling me to develop an engagement strategy for our Chinese students. In such a competitive climate for global graduate recruitment, all four careers services knew it was imperative that we undertook the challenge of coordinating an international event in order to increase the numbers of our returning students securing graduate level employment. n
Of the students that completed the post-
event student feedback survey 93% said they intended to apply to companies they had met at the fair (EY, HSBC, Mars and Unilever being the most popular).
www.agr.org.uk | Graduate Recruiter 27
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