Career fair gives info on jobs, training

SALALAH, March 12 - In its efforts to prepare students for the future, Salalah College of Applied Sciences organised this year’s career fair on Tuesday. Among the 24 participating organisation were hotels, banks, higher education institutions (HEIs), telecom service providers and major companies like Port of Salalah, Salalah Methanol, Octal, Salalah Mills, Oman Development Bank, and Bank Muscat. Adil Dashisha, Head of Career Guidance Department at CAS Salalah, called the career fair a hugely successful event due to large participation from the companies and direct interaction of the college students with them.

“It was a win-win situation for both the parties. The participating organisations got to know the candidates who would hit the job market soon after their graduation and the college was successful in organising a ‘business to students (B2S) meeting’ as our commitment to support and prepare the students for the future,” he said. Important public sector participants at the career fair were Oman Airports, Ministry of Manpower, Public Authority of Radio and Television, Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Riyada), SME Fund (Al Rafd) and Oman Establishment for Press Publication and Advertising, publishers of Observer and Oman newspapers.

Mohammed Abdullah al Rowas, HR head at Salalah Airport, said it was very important to interact with the future employees to make them understand the nature of job in aviation industry.

“Generally the students look only at the rosy side of the jobs as most of students who visited my stall said they wanted to take up jobs at the airport without knowing the exact nature of the jobs at the airport. They should know the challenges of working in shifts, quick and prompt action, and hospitality skills etc to ensure that there is less drop out post recruitment,” he said.

Salem Khasoob, a representative of Sandook al Rafd said he was happy to address students’ queries on training and funding of SME projects.

Jamal al Balushi, Communications and Media Officer at Salalah Methanol, called upon the students to take up training opportunities supported by the company in several higher education Institutions.

To develop understanding about the college among the participating organisations, the college had showcased its programmes at stalls covering information technology, business studies, mass communication, quality assurance, research and a corner dedicated to entrepreneurs.

Musallam Hawas al Aamari, Acting Head of Quality Assurance, called this gathering important for quality assurance purposes. “Despite working hard on quality assurance we feel that the right message doesn’t go to the right corner. Through such meetings we feel like conveying the message of creating a culture of quality assurance among the staff members and students.” He said that the committee assigned for quality assurance was working hard to achieve the institutional accreditation from OAAA (Oman Academic Accreditation Authority).

Dr Hanaa Mahmoud, Assistant Professor, put emphasis on research and explained about several research projects of the college. “Through this event we want to impress upon the participating organisations that we put emphasis on scientific researches and our students and staff get good exposure of research activities.” Most of the participating organisations offered training opportunities to the college students and found it to be a good platform to showcase their own services.