Islamabad Job Fair: Employment prospects draw large crowd

[Naveed Yaseen]

Myra Imran & Saadia Khalid
Hunt for decent employment in an already saturated job market drew a large number of young people to the Job Fair 2009 organised by the International Islamic University (IIU) in collaboration with the Jang Group here on Tuesday.

The two-day job fair was inaugurated jointly by IIU Rector Professor Fateh M Malik and Group Editor ‘Jang’ Mahmood Sham at the IIU Faisal Mosque Campus.

Holding files stuffed with copies of their CVs and other important documents, groups of young graduates visited every stall.

As many as 44 stalls facilitated students from different fields, including business administration, computer engineering and telecommunication, by providing them valuable information regarding their fields and describing the appropriate way to apply for their desired job.

The hustle and bustle that started in the morning continued till the evening with job seekers pouring in throughout the day. The visitors had to go through strict security checks thrice on their way to the venue.

As soon as the fair began formally, hundreds of youth thronged around stalls set up by companies and organisations. An hour later, the stallholders, especially those from IT companies and telecommunication, had bundles of CVs on their tables dropped by graduates from local universities.

Starting with a stall to collect relief funds for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the fair offered a variety of opportunities to those who have just graduated. Some companies collected CVs on the spot whereas others asked visitors to fill up forms to submit their applications for available vacancies.

Taking this opportunity to market their businesses, the companies also distributed their introductory material among visitors.

The IIU students also displayed their research work including their award-winning projects in computer sciences.

One of the interesting displays was DNA Protein Analysis by Usman Ali who was a student of IIU and got second prize in an international competition.

The stalls from public sector attracted a large crowd of young graduates who were briefed on job opportunities available and how to apply. Some got disappointed when they were told that they could not apply for government jobs on the spot.

‘The News’ stall was a big crowd puller where hundreds of aspiring reporters, IT professionals, HR managers and sub-editors dropped their CVs and asked all sorts of questions about the media industry.

The students found the fair an ideal opportunity to explore various job trends prevailing in the market.

Talking to ‘The News,’ visiting students said that such fairs help them in interacting with different companies in a limited time period.

“We don’t have to go to different companies and firms one by one rather apply to so many relevant companies in one go,” said Anjum Naseer.

On the other hand, students also appreciated the efforts of the management in organising the fair in the time of recession. “When many companies are following downsizing policy, holding the job fair at such a time is indeed commendable,” said a student, Zeeshan Abbasi.

Another student, Mohammad Naseer Ahmed, however, criticised the organisers for setting up stalls for limited fields. “I have done my Masters in International Relations but could not find a single stall relevant to my field,” he said.

The stallholders were of the opinion that such fairs serve dual purpose to them. “It helps us to directly interact with the applicants besides marketing of our companies,” said Suleman Chowdhry at the stall of PEL.

The stall of Preston University was offering jobs in lectureship, finance and HR department and received a large number of applications till the evening. “Besides offering jobs in our university we have linkages with industries and refer competent students to those industries for jobs,” said Samina Naz.

Many organisations have set up their stalls for creating awareness, besides offering jobs for various posts.

“We are basically here to create awareness regarding hepatitis, besides providing information regarding jobs recently announced by the ministry,” said a stallholder of the Ministry of Health.

Several educational institutions have also set up their stalls to provide information regarding their admission schedules. They have also displayed the award-winning theses of students for information of visitors.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=182281