Career Day at KIMEP often leads to more questions than answers. What do students expect? What do companies want? And finally, can you get job experience as a freshman?
Sponsored by the College of Social Sciences, the Feb. 27 Career Day saw more than 80 students, resumes in hand or links to personal online portfolios, shuffling between desks with potential employers from Almaty.
“Today, I really want to leave my CV with at least one company to get a brighter career path,” said Diana Qairolla, a fourth-year student from the International Relations department. “The last time I was at such an event was two years ago; not much has changed, just some new companies have appeared.”
Indeed, not much has changed in the way career days work. However, compared to the career day in the previous semester, today there were fewer students, even though the number of company representatives remained about the same.
“On our career day in the first semester, we had about 150 students, but that is not the case today,” said Elmira Kabiyeva from the career center and event organizer. “However, we prioritize the quality of the event, not the numbers.”
One of the other differences was the competition among the most engaged students, with certificates from Meloman worth 10,000 KZT as prizes for the three most active participants.
“My expectation for today is to get my CV done and then to get an overview of the opportunities that KIMEP can provide, so I can get a clearer vision of where to move,” said Medina Meirambek, a first-year journalism student. The CV clinic corner consultant was on hand throughout the event, helping students with one of the most important documents of their lives. A plethora of students, mostly in their first and second years, including Meirambek, stood in front of the CV clinic table, waiting to be considered by the expert.
“Of course, the main expectation is to meet people who have initiative, are up-to-date, and can work with AI,” shared Diana Maratova, an HR specialist from Technodom. “For an internship, we accept everyone, regardless of their year.”
“It is not my first time representing my company here, and I like KIMEP students,” said Aruzhan Abdugalieva, an HR manager from WE Project. “These people are always responsive and are super-candidates, with whom it is really pleasant to work. So I am sure that today I can meet a lot of worthy candidates.”
There did seem to be a prevalence of job and internship opportunities for economics and finance students, even though the CSS is much more diverse. Students from political science, journalism, and international relations struggle to find a suitable job offer at the career day. We hope that this will change for the better in the upcoming job fairs.
“To get the maximum benefit from career day, it would be great if instructors taught their students the skill of pitching; many students have no clue about presenting themselves,” said Kabiyeva.
After finishing with exploring different companies and with refreshments, students were invited to a workshop on how to create a standout Linkedin profile, provided by Aygul Ishakova, head of recruitment and employer branding EY in Central Asia.
For students with little to no experience or those in earlier grades, Zhamilya Utarbaeva, an organizer and academic program manager of CSS, shared another useful piece of advice, “You need to be proactive anyway and focus on your soft skills. We don’t have power over our partner companies, so we cannot impose our students’ needs on them.”