Career Day at University Mother Teresa: interested students seek for application training!

Skopje, 30.08.2022. A Career Day that was organized in Skopje at the state University Mother Teresa. It was very well accepted and followed with active students’ participation. The students were informed about this event on their faculty e-mail, social media (facebook and linked in), school parliament and student organisations. Also, Prof. Diturije Ismaili and Mr.Ilir Idrizi from the Career Center spread the word for this event on 30.08.2022. After a short introduction to the program scheme by Dimitar Kaljoshevski, the trainer Prof.Diturije Ismaili took over and spent the first part of the day sharing information and data how to prepare CV, what are the main bottlenecks and hints during the preparation. A number of examples of both successful and unsuccessful CVs, lessons learned were also shown, which was important to the attendees. Through that, they were able to see the mistakes and how to avoid them. Then they had a task to prepare own CV and to present it.

After the coffee break, we proceeded with presentation about the motivation letter. We talked about the preparation of a cover letter as well as its application in practice. The need to prepare a cover letter plays a big role in the academic world and therefore it is of great importance that students know how to create it. We have seen examples of several cover letters, depending on the chosen structure they can apply. When the participants finished with the Drafting motivation letter exercise, we went on Lunch break in Restaurant National where the students had the chance to share their stories about their background and why they decided to study their subjects. All the students were with different backgrounds like: law, engineering, economics, administration and technical faculty. It was an excellent networking opportunity, and chance to see the students share ideas about their future career’s plants After the lunch break, we went back to the faculty continued with the working session.

The third part was a job interview simulation. In this section, they had the opportunity to watch a video, showing correct behavior during an interview. The most important points such as dress code, code of conduct and posture were pointed, also a great hint was pointed out that within 24 hours it is recommended to send a follow up email to the interviewer which was new to the participants and they found it very interesting and productive. At the end of this part, they had the opportunity to perform a simulation where one of them is in the role of an employer and the other in the role of a candidate for employment. Based on real, actual job interviews, they assumed these roles and managed to conduct interviews within the scope of the given task. This part for them was both educational and entertaining, which kept their attention after the meal when the energy is down.

At the end of the whole day, evaluation sheets were given to the attendees and we recognized that the participant’s satisfaction was very high. Namely, 100% of the attendees rated the event 5 (the highest rating), and also 100% of them answered the next question, whether they learned something new, with the highest rating - 5. For the last two questions referred to the professional, career development of the candidates, they expressed positive views. They strongly recommended this kind of trainings, with practical examples and real case presentation (CV creation, preparation for a job interview), that will contribute for future professional development. All attendees responded positively and they understand the correlation between these trainings and their development, which is a good sign.