Turning Dreams into Reality – SOHOS Career Day

“With influx of information about career, innovation and market competition, we end up feeling confused or less competent for industry challenges; more or less the career day cleared ambiguities I found myself in,” shared Ryan Chiew, a student of Diploma in Hotel Management.

INTI School of Hospitality (SOHOS) Subang organized one-day career day with the theme, “Turning Dreams into Reality” on February 11, 2015 at Subang campus. The participating partners consisted of Kuala Lumpur Convention Center (KLCC), Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, JobStreet, ACCOR Hotels, The Morning After Coffee Bar, the Grand Dorsett Hotel and Barista Guild Asia.

My Impression:

I was greeted by a student dressed in formal and professional attire, but not her dress impressed me, instead it was her greetings, presentation and tantalizing promotion of selfie contest. Guess what? I couldn’t say no and ran for the contest; hah! As a student, I aspired was heading the event or the least anchoring the event, such was feeling I sensed by some of many students across the venue. The booths by industry partners were well organized and the presentations well-delivered.

Career day Proceedings:

Mr. Naresh’s speech echoes:Attitude & Passion

Mr. Andrew Penington congratulated Event Management students who planned, coordinated and made the event possible by its administrative, logistics and marketing means. Expressing the importance of Hospitality Career day, Mr. Andrew outlined, “Employability of students tops INTI-SOHOS priority by helping you build connections, networking and enriching the attitude [presentation, body language and communication] of each student.”

Whereas, Mr. Naresh, the HR Manager at Business Events Destination of KLCC expressed high hopes for further hospitality industry growth with special emphasis on two factors for market success by any individual: 1. Attitude and 2. Passion. His tips for job interview success, “demonstrating keenness, attitude to learn and ability to communicate in English” raised hopes but to a question about hiring international students, few regretted asking the question. A country aiming global market offers limited job opportunities to global talents with the idea of promoting home-grown talents. It’s not one industry but a handful of many.

It’s not distance that keeps people apart but lack of communication

Posing a question to audience, “Is your communication style a friend or foe?” Zacharias Rajagopal, the Assistant HR Manager proved his communication style was friend to his audience. His hilariously practical examples steered the mood of audience to a whole fresh and entertaining level. Hiding behind posters, he showed examples of telephone conversation, sitting crossed-hands, shaking and showing his leg-hair (his jokes), he posed examples of body language as crucial part of communication. Standing straight with big-grin (smile), he emphasis how communication at workplace can ensure prospects for promotion. Mr. Zach advocated communication creates perception about oneself at workplace.

Participants’ Feedback:

Remember Ryan Chiew, who backed himself attending the event? When asked, what new thing he learnt by his participation, he expressed having learnt resume formats and its benefits for both self-branding and recruitment from presentation by JobStreet. Similar were Mohammad Sufian’s impression, who has attended career workshops in Pakistan. According to him, the speakers and booths’ facilitators provided straight and career specific information. Ilham from Uzbekistan thought final year students fortunate who had internship knocking their doors at a single platform.

“Time to decide!” urged R.Darvindran, the HR Officer at NOVOTEL Hotels. According to him, the students visited his booth inquiring about internship, scopes of on-job learning, job benefits and all he conveyed was, “It’s time to decide what discipline to pursue.” Not to his surprise, Afiq Shahizan, the Site Supervisor at AJNS (All Job network Services) at KLCC was inquired about job payment and benefits; however, 18 SOHOS students filled forms for part-time jobs during weekends, holidays at KLCC.

The Morning After’s Chief Operating Officer, Sarah felt reluctance of students visiting her booth, but not long enough. She received great number of visitors afternoon who were part-time job hunters and inquired about internship too. Answering about benefits for industry partners by participating, “networking among partners, finding potential employer and employees” were key highlights.

The organizing team of Career Day with Mr. Alex and his colleagues

The HR Executive of Sunway Hotels, Mr. Alex’s excitement and jubilation bloomed on his impressions and by his gesture, which I could not resist. “Attending the career day is getting benefits of your investment [time, energy & money] bringing industry choices to you,” he responded when asked career day’s advantage. “For partners, apart from networking, learning about future employees’ expectations, mind-set help draw road-map for future investments in the industry,” he expressed the advantages for industry partners by attending the career days at colleges. Luckily, four (4) students registered for part-time jobs at Sunway Resort, Hotel and Spa.

The career day was not an opportunity for merely networking but enhancing understanding of students industry challenges, market competition thus preparing them for industry ever growing, ever evolving.