Job fair still losing popularity

 

AUBG hosted the 17th Annual Job and Internship Fair on March 30 and 31. Full time job opportunities and internships were presented by the 20 participating companies, seven less than at last year's fair. "A lot of companies that we contacted chose not to participate. They didn't have any openings," Ivaylo Aksharov, events organizer and career center coordinator said.

Starting in 1994, when the first edition brought seven companies to AUBG, the number of participants grew every year, until 2009. There was a peak of approximately 50 companies a couple of years ago, Aksharov said.

This year's Job Fair featured a company from outside the Balkan region - Markus Evans Europe. They offered two full-time positions in their local office in Cyprus. "The job fair is great, very well organized. But what makes it really special is the quality of students that this university has to offer. They are very intelligent, very ambitious, the kind of young talent we would certainly be very interested in having at our company," Sylvia Michael, director of production at Marcus Evans, said. She hired an AUBG student three years ago who turned out to be one of the company's top employees, she added.

The participation of the real estate market companies dramatically decreased. This year only Colliers International was present, as opposed to five to seven companies from the previous years. "It is at least our seventh time. We are very satisfied with our colleagues who are AUBG graduates. It seems that the interest among the students is not that big as we used to see previous years," Vesela Petrova, human resource executive at Colliers International Bulgaria, said

"I [was] not really impressed [by the job fair]. I expected a little bit more. [...] I was looking mainly for permanent positions but they are mostly offering internships," senior student Dimitriya Paunova said.

In times of such economic downturns companies tend to increase the number of positions for internships and different trainee programs rather than full-time opportunities, and "last year and this year we've seen much more internship programs than full-time positions," Aksharov said.

"I am looking for [...] internship programs for the coming summer and even though the number of companies is smaller this year I am quite satisfied because they mainly offer internships, so for me it is a good opportunity," junior Dilyana Gramadarova said.