On November 25th and 26th, 2020, the Career Development and Alumni Relations Office organized the first online job and internship fairs in the history of Kozminski University. The event was met with great interest from students, companies and organizations participating in this initiative. The event was attended by Accenture Operations, the Intelligence Agency, Amazon, Astra Zeneca, Goldman Sachs, Google, J.P. Morgan, JTI, KPMG, the Ministry of Development, Labor and Technology, Nordea, Vistra and the Social Insurance Institution.
Students eagerly participated in the meetings and presentations that we prepared for them. In their questionnaires they emphasised that thanks to the MS Teams platform they could smoothly and intuitively switch between webinars, which made it easier for them to participate in the event. The fair in the on-line formula allowed for direct contact between students and employers, which enabled them to build a professional network from the comfortable environments of their homes. Exhibitor representatives prepared interesting presentations, videos, and discussions for students. Each meeting included a Q&A session. Participants of the sessions particularly asked about the recruitment process, organizational culture, development and promotion opportunities, as well as employment conditions in organizations. Particularly frequent were questions about the possibilities of remote work and flexible working hours, which may indicate that our students have grown fond of the remote mode of operation and would continue to use it even when we no longer have to deal with the pandemic.
One of the most interesting ideas of the companies' presentations were elements of gamification. Prepared competitions were very popular among students and exciting for them. As examples, we can mention, among others, the contest testing the knowledge of the conducted presentation prepared by Amazon through the menti.com platform. Quizzes embedded in presentations prepared by companies were also popular: JTI, Vistra and Google. Maintaining the attention and focus of the listener who is in front of the computer screen is a challenge, and most representatives of the companies present at the fair coped with it fantastically.
The results of the surveys showed that organizing a virtual edition of the Job and Internship Fair is an attractive alternative to a stationary event. Undoubtedly, participation in virtual meetings is more demanding from all people involved: companies, students and us - the organizers.
Let's check what our students think about the fair itself:
The very openness of this meeting and the possibility for first-year students like me to participate as well is a great asset. Participation in the fair allowed me to increase my knowledge about the market demand and also to create a subjective evaluation of some of the companies. I participated only in three meetings on 26.11 this year. I only regret that I was absent on Wednesday.
I really liked the formula in which this year's fair was conducted, I mean the Teams platform, thanks to which it was very easy to switch from one meeting to another. A wide range of offers from different industries and fields I think is very positive.
MS Teams enabled us students to receive presentations in an extremely comfortable and accessible way. I also have the impression that it was much easier for the leaders to control the Q&A session, and it gave the students the opportunity to freely ask questions, for everyone had a turn. Everything was very well organized and what is particularly important there were no technical problems.
This year's virtual fair was attended by about 600 KU students. The most popular were meetings with companies such as: Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Google, Accenture Operations and J.P. Morgan.
Due to the great interest in this form of event, we invite you to the next fair event organized by the Career Development and Alumni Relations offcie in the beginning of March 2021.
See you online.
