Narrow range of firms at Careers Week

Several students were disappointed at the lack of variety in the jobs and specialisations represented during the Careers Week on campus, even though company representatives and organisers described it as "satisfactory".

Some students complained that of the 16 stands representing prospective employers at the convention, over half targeted just students from the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy.

Just a handful of companies targeted students from other courses, such as law and ICT. Companies connected to architecture, media and engineering, among others, were absent from the convention, geared to raise student awareness on career opportunities.

A fourth-year law student said a number of the companies which set up stands did not go about it very well - they did little to attract students to their stand, while students on the other hand were not very interested in seeing what the stands were all about.

She felt it would have been better to have more variety among the companies taking part, but she recognised that this may not have been possible to secure.

This was echoed by Education Minister Dolores Christina who, speaking at the convention's closing day yesterday, emphasised the need for a wider representation of employers at the convention.

Mrs Cristina expressed hopes that next year's convention would feature a wider representation, while welcoming the participation of new companies who made an appearance in a bid for recruitment.

Mrs Cristina toured the convention, accompanied by University Rector Juanito Camilleri and various University Students' Council (KSU) representatives.

Vivienne Bajada, KSU social policy commissioner in charge of the convention, conceded there was an imbalance in the number of companies targeting students from certain courses.

She stressed KSU could not control the variety of the companies who took part: "We sent out marketing plans to a large number of companies."

The feedback KSU received from both students and employers was "good", Ms Bajada said, adding that the website dedicated to the convention registered an "impressive" number of hits in the first four days alone. A number of companies had also stepped forward to express interest in next year's convention.

Overall, company representatives said they were happy with the number of students who expressed interest in being recruited by their companies.