On 14 April, VSU took part in a National Career Fair. The event was held in the Voronezh concert hall. It was a large-scale event involving government representatives, universities, and defence industry enterprises who met to solve HR problems. Voronezh State University was one of the key participants. There were talks by the members of the rector’s office, the VSU Career Centre and the student’s community.
The event gathered 900 students from Voronezh studying on higher education and secondary vocational education programmes. There were students from Voronezh State University, Voronezh State Technical University, Voronezh Institute of High Technologies, and Morozov Voronezh State Forest Engineering University. Education institutions hold annual Career Days. However, this joint event helped to reach a new level of interaction with enterprises. The candidates learned about career opportunities at interactive exhibitions and could ask questions to the representatives of the government and the business community.
The programme also included discussion meetings. They concerned the demand of defence industry enterprises in new employees. Dmitry Kostin, VSU Vice-Rector for Research, Innovations, and Digitising, gave a talk at the plenary session dedicated to the HR demand in the region. Ekaterina Mikhailuk, Head of the VSU Career Development and Business Partnership Centre, moderated a round table discussion for students and employers.
A round table discussion of the career fair was a platform for dialogue between representatives of the state, science, and business community. The speakers discussed the ways to increase the number of prospective employees by means of employer-sponsored training programmes. There were also talks by leading expert representing each sector: Sergey Khlysov, Deputy Head of the Department of Industry and Transport of the Voronezh Region, Sergey Khlybov, HR Director at PAO Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (VASO), and Vyacheslav Borichevsky, Chairman of the Committee on HR Policy in Business Environment of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Voronezh Region.
Ivan Yatskikh, Head of the Employment Department of the Voronezh Region talked about the current trends in employee recruitment. HR Policy is changing, and companies have medium- and long-term recruitment plans.
“The labour market is changing rapidly. Previously, employers decided who they wanted to hire and set their own requirements to the candidates. Now the situation has changed to the benefit of job seekers: it is the specialist (one with good skills and professional expertise) who chooses the employer and sets the employment terms”, said Ivan Yatskikh.
The discussion was also participated in by Elena Medvedeva, Acting Director of the Centre for Advanced Professional Training, and Elena Kiseleva, Head of the Department of Employer-Sponsored Training of Voronezh State Technical University. Their talks were especially useful for students because the Centre for Advanced Professional Training runs a number of programmes for secondary vocational education students, and Voronezh State Technical University has a good experience in employer-sponsored training.
At the end of the event students also had their questions to employers. They wanted to know about the required skills and qualities as well as about the recruitment procedure. The questions were voiced by secondary vocational education students from VSU Vita Yurovskaya and Olga Olkhovatskaya.
Over 100 VSU students took part in the event including members of student teams, representatives of the student research community, and students from departments whose research concerns industry. VSU students also helped to organise the event.
The total number of organisations taking part in the Career Fair was over 150, including partners of VSU: Concern Sozvezdie, the Chemical Automatics Design Bureau, VASO, Electrosignal, Research Institute of Electronic Technology, and Micron.
The partner of the event was the Job in Russia portal, which provided information about over 5000 vacancies all over the country.
“The state HR policy is undergoing major transformations, and VSU pays a lot of attention to these changes. During the fair we could have an honest dialogue with the government representatives and the business community. We could ask questions to state representatives and managers of large enterprises responsible for the current trends. VSU, as a leading university in the region, considers it a great honour to be one of the organisers of the fair. We are going to use this experience when organising career days at VSU. We can also enhance the level of specialised events at the university”, said Ekaterina Mikhailuk.
The next Career Day at VSU will be held on April 27th.
