The North-West University (NWU) Career Centre hosted its first Virtual Career Fair on 5August 2020 with great success.

A total of 39 companies joined the fair to showcase and share 172 career opportunities with NWU students.

This event attracted a whopping 1 198 students from across the university’s three campuses: 338 from Mahikeng, 573 from Potchefstroom, and 287 from Vanderbijlpark. 

Proving the fact that our next generation of leaders are indeed savvy in the digital world, 58% of students joined via smartphones or laptops, followed by 41% who used desktop computers to join the virtual fair. Strangely enough, only 1% used tablet devices to connect in.

The various career opportunities offered by the participating companies were divided across several disciplines. accounting studies attracted 9 626 visits, the Law discipline attracted 8 695 visits, and general disciplines related to humanities and natural sciences attracted 1 750 visits.

“The number of visits are a clear reflection of our students’ interaction with our industry partners, and we are very proud of them for taking this opportunity to shape their own career paths,” says Thoriso Maseng, director of the Career Centre.

He says they hope this will further encourage other students to participate in the next virtual career fair that is scheduled for 21 October 2020.

“The Career Centre team is happy and excited for the opportunity we had to be innovative and offer an alternative option to hosting a traditional career fair. As a team, we have taken this chance to embrace change and technology to achieve our goals.

“A special word of thanks goes to all the parties involved, not only our Career Centre team, but also other NWU role players such as Corporate Relations and Marketing and the office of the deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning,” adds Thoriso.