More than 1,700 American University of Sharjah, AUS, students and alumni registered, explored employment and internship opportunities and connected with leading regional and international corporate entities at the first Virtual Career Fair held by AUS on 20th April.

Hosted on a virtual platform, the Career Fair allowed graduates and students to explore a host of career openings, including full-time positions and internships in environment, finance, accounting, engineering, marketing, digital media and communication, economics, graphic design, business, construction, oil and gas, statistics and other fields.

It also provided students with an opportunity to be interviewed by employers from 34 companies and organisations at the local, regional, international, private, semi-government and government levels.

Speaking about his experience at the fair, Mousataf Al-Disouqi, AUS alumnus and electrical engineer, said, "This event was very important, as currently, we are going through a challenging time that makes meeting recruiters and applying for jobs very difficult. The Virtual Career Fair represented a great opportunity to get in touch with potential employers and apply for jobs. I had a wonderful experience."

"Due to the high demand from our students and graduates, we extended the Virtual Career Fair for an additional two hours to cater to the big turnout, which is an indicator of its success," said Charles A. Diab, Executive Director of the AUS Office of Advancement and Alumni Affairs, the organisers of the event.

He also expressed his gratitude to the event sponsors and recruiters.

During the fair, students and alumni connected with top recruiters via video and text chat, browsed virtual booths, checked the posted vacancies and applied for positions, and networked with recruiters. Participating companies and recruiters had personalised booths equipped with special tabs to share video content, documents, vacancies and chat options.

Speaking about the event, Khaled Al Huraimel, CEO of Bee’ah Group and one of the institutional advancement sponsors of the event, said, "It is exciting to see how AUS has digitalised its annual career fair for students, giving companies such as Bee’ah the opportunity to engage with young graduates and promising talent."

Rebecca Feghali, Talent Acquisition Officer from L'Oréal Middle East and event Bronze sponsor, said, "The AUS Virtual Career Fair was a great success and exceeded expectations. The platform was very interactive, and we were able to access the right information about the students and alumni who were looking for opportunities."