With the academic year drawing to a close, many students at Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions are approaching the time for critical decisions as to what career they might embark upon.
They may go straight into the workforce, take up postgraduate studies or try to enrol in one of the many excellent management trainee programmes offered by companies in the city.
Many of these young aspiring professionals were drawn to the recent Classified Post Career Forum, which was a hive of activity, with attendees keen to take the opportunity to find out more about a host of recruitment prospects, career seminars and networking opportunities to hand.
Some 20 organisations were in attendance at the forum, which took place on 21 March at the InnoCentre in Kowloon Tong, to share career advice, give information about vacancies and showcase trainee programmes in a range of industries, including retail, banking, aviation, law enforcement, manufacturing, insurance and many more.
A line-up of topical seminars running alongside the forum also afforded visitors the chance to learn more about industry insights and career opportunities from experts in the field.
As always, a major draw at the Career Forum was the Shadow a CEO Programme selection process. The programme gives successful applicants the chance to spend three days observing at close quarters one of Hong Kong’s top senior executives, seeing what it takes to run a major company, and picking up invaluable advice on management and leadership.
Shortlisted applicants were interviewed at the forum by representatives from the specialist recruitment firm Peoplebank, with 16 making it through to final interviews with programme’s three participating companies. Up to nine of these will then be chosen to shadow one of four senior executives from those firms, the South China Morning Post, Stan Group (Holdings) and HK Express.
Peoplebank was also on hand to dish out resume advice in its role as onsite CV Doctors. Dozens of youngsters dropped by the company’s booth to get one-on-one expert tips on how to improve their CVs – from spotlighting key characteristics to tailoring CVs for different employers and contexts.
This year’s edition of the Career Forum also saw the unveiling of a new event, the inaugural Classified Post Hackathon. Details of the event were outlined at a briefing session during the forum and the Hackathon itself took place over two days, on March 24 and 25, at Hong Kong Science and Technology Park.
Budding young entrepreneurs worked in teams over the course of 24 hours to come up with innovative technological solutions to real-world business challenges, making full use of the application programming interfaces hosted at HKSTP’s new data studio. The Hackathon was a huge success with six teams taking home prizes in two categories – media and insurance.
To find out more about both events, take a look through the following pages.
If you couldn’t make it this time, there will be another chance to attend the Career Forum in October this year.
