Over 4,100 job posts to be offered at NTU Career Fair

See which companies are hiring.

According to a release, the job outlook looks bright for this year’s graduating students at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). A record number of 223 Singapore and multinational organisations are on the hunt for NTU students at the university’s annual Career Fair this year.

This makes the NTU Career Fair one of the largest job fairs at a Singapore university campus, with public and private sector employers seeking to fill more than 4,100 job positions, more than what was on offer at the Fair in recent years. For the first time this year, the Fair is being held over three days, instead of two – on 18, 21 and 25 February 2014 – to cater to the increase in the number of employers wanting to take part.

Fifty seven employers will be taking part for the first time. They include leading companies such as DBS, Foster Wheeler Asia Pacific, Sanyo Denki, Starhub and Unilever Asia.

The Fair also features three pavilions that will bring companies within the same industry cluster together. These include a Japan pavilion offering job openings at Japanese companies based in Singapore and Japan, as well as a ‘Powering Lives’ pavilion featuring energy companies coordinated by the Energy Market Authority, and a Maritime pavilion by the Singapore Maritime Foundation.

About 9,000 students are expected to visit the Fair each day, including some 8,000 final-year students who will graduate this July.

Speaking at the launch of the Career Fair this morning, Associate Professor Kwok Kian Woon, NTU's Associate Provost for Student Life, said, “The NTU Career Fair not only showcases the immense diversity of the job market, but also of our students. It enables employers to see first-hand what students from the 13 schools here have to offer, and for our graduating students to explore the exciting job opportunities that await them in Singapore and abroad.”

More students undergoing internships and converting internships to full-time jobs

Increasingly more NTU students are successfully converting their internships to full-time employment. Such internships “conversions” are expected to rise this year as companies continue to turn to internships as an on-the-job testing ground to identify and recruit entry-level staff.

Currently, almost 5,000 NTU students are placed on credit-bearing internships each year, compared to 4,000 five years ago. Overall, eight in ten NTU students would graduate with at least one internship experience at various organisations in Singapore and around the world, such as the Big Four accounting firms, JP Morgan and Seagate.

Based on students’ feedback last year, almost 860 students from the Class of 2013 received job offers from their internship organisations. Some NTU degree courses, such as Accountancy and Business, reported as high as 50% of their final-year students being offered full-time jobs by their internship employers.

One such student from this year’s graduating cohort is Mr Johnnie Ang. The 25 year-old who is pursuing Maritime Studies, was offered a full-time position by Oldendorff Carriers, one of Germany’s largest shipping companies, after impressing his managers during his ten-week internship last year.

Recalling his experience, Johnnie said, “My course prepared me well for my internship and allowed me to learn a lot more on the job. I never expected to be exposed to so many new things during the ten weeks. I was given a mentor at each of the five departments where I was attached, and got to visit a vessel and Jurong Port, which was a real eye-opener into the technical and operations aspects.”

Internships are also giving students an edge as they compete for the best jobs. It was due to his internship experience at technical consulting firm Meinhardt’s mechanical and electrical (M&E) department that enabled Mr Tomoteru Woo, 25, to clinch a prized job at Goldman Sachs as a Critical Systems Analyst nine months before he graduates.

Mr Woo said, “The job ad stated that they were looking for someone with M&E experience, so that gave me a competitive edge. My M&E experience was also the most discussed topic during the two rounds of interviews. I was really lucky to be offered the first job that I applied for.”

Mr Atif Saleem, 21, who is graduating with a double degree in Business (IT) and Engineering (Computer Science) is joining Citi as a Technology Management Associate, after spending a 3-month internship stint at IBM’s Dubai office where he was part of a multinational team for a technology project.