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Campus Spotlight

AIUB Job Fair: An exciting afFair

Insia Ishtiaq Juhi

It's almost trite to mention that educational institutions are the de facto manufacturers of manpower. Every university usually has a 'placement office' where students drop their résumé and the authority tries to put them in best possible jobs. But out of so many, there are very few universities that organise well-managed Job Fairs with a variety of job choice for their students. I am proud to say that AIUB has been arranging Job Fairs since long with the recent one taking place on the 10th of June 2006.

Honestly, it was a massive one. The three-day-long Job fair comprised of three parts: Work shops on résumé writing and interview facing, seminars on numerous organisational issues, and the Job Fair itself.

Mr. Sheikh Tashfin Hossain, HR Manager of Unilever Bangladesh put emphasis on the importance of a perfect 'job objective' that works as a bridge between one's ambition and capability. Highlighting the Do-s & Don't-s of résumé-writing, he categorically narrated how a résumé should be more professional instead of being personal. We learned from him that we indeed have just 30 seconds to impress our employers with our résumés!

The job market is getting smaller in size
There was a special seminar on job opportunities for Software Professionals after the résumé workshop. Conducted by Mr. Fahim Mashroor, CEO of BdJobs.com Ltd., the seminar underscored the current scenario in Bangladesh regarding software-related jobs.

Once we submit our résumés, consciously or unconsciously we roam around the phone, mobile or keep on checking our e-mails to find when the employer calls us up.

But we hardly keep in mind what we would do if we were called! To know the mechanism of making the first shot the hit shot, we had Mr. S.M. Kamal, Executive Director of Kazi Farms

Dr.Anwar Hossain and Mr. Tareque Moudud of AIUB with Mr.Arif Shahrier and Ms.Rumana Rahman of BATB

Group among us. He conducted the workshop in two parts, and on the first half he took a mock interview session with the volunteer interviewees and critics from the audience. Audience laughed out loud when an interviewee mentioned about his girlfriend as his 'biggest success story apart from academics'!

Ms. Rumana Rahman of BATB

Mr. Kamal was prompt enough to shoot back saying, 'In this era of multi affairs, you are considering having a single girlfriend as your biggest achievement! Don't you think you should list this incident in your failure list?'

He also talked about using IQ while answering questions. 'You should not open areas of question for the interviewer while answering any question,' he said, 'You should never try to prove yourself the best and even if you don't know the answers, shouldn't let the interviewer feel that.'

The final homily from a veteran
A seminar on current HR policies in Bangladesh was what made everyone spellbound. Mr. M A Abdullah, Senior Executive Vice President & HR Head of Prime Bank, enthralled all by his unique story-telling type discourse-a classic example of theoretical knowledge blended with interesting real-life examples and humour.

'We do not look for the right answers all the time. We look for the right people. And for that, you need orientation with the right kind of knowledge', he said.

The Corporate Came Ahead
On the very day of the Job Fair, Mr. Mehboobur Rehman, DGM & Head of Human Resources, Commercial Bank of Ceylon Limited, conducted an hour-long seminar on 'Career Goal Setting & Ways of Building Career'. In his speech, he mostly emphasized on setting up goals, planning the career the career on the right track & following that career map.

Some scenes from the fair

Ms. Rumana Rahman, Manager HR, British American Tobacco Bangladesh along with The Head of HR of BATB Mr. Arif Shahrier showed up to give a glimpse of 'Career at BATB.’

Apart from these mesmerising seminars and corporate presentations there were company stalls collecting students' résumés. But readers, with so much of gems around, do you think there was any extra bit of issue left for us to learn from the stalls?