On Friday 18 October 2024, Lancaster University Confucius Institute hosted its well-known International Careers Fair in collaboration with the Lancaster University Management School Careers Team, with over 200 students in attendance alongside featured representatives from 18 leading global companies, most of which have a strong influence in China.

This year’s fair signified one of the most successful turnouts to date, emphasising the Confucius Institute’s dedication to ensuring that international students can integrate into the new communities at Lancaster University and providing students with the connections and skills required to further advance in the global job market by encouraging and strengthening UK-China professional connections. This fair acted as a platform for students to connect directly with overseas employers and their representatives, helping them gain an insight into the variety of career pathways, different industry requirements, and potential job opportunities that each overseas employer had to offer. The fair’s success was highlighted and recognised by the prominent companies in attendance, with EIC UK stating it to have 'undoubtedly achieved further success’ due to the ‘guidance of the students being better’ and a higher level of student participation, whilst also providing them with an effective platform to ‘recruit outstanding Lancaster University students’.

Many top employers were represented at the fair, including Decathlon China, Hanshow Technology, Beckets, Fibrus and many more, all offering students individualised advice on career pathways, industry expectations, the different application processes, and the outstanding qualities that a student must have to be successful in their chosen fields. Birkdale Collective shared invaluable advice regarding crafting effective resumes whilst also emphasising the skills a student requires that align with the role’s main responsibilities. They supported students in potentially applying for each of their different roles, such as the Sports Marketing Intern position and ensured that all questions were answered. Beckets and Fibrus also provided students with knowledge surrounding their industries and the expectations that they set for each employee.

Overall, each student effectively connected and networked with the variety of different employers and their representatives, helping the majority of the students feel more confident about the application process.

Many attendees also had a chance to engage in insightful discussions with each employer about the company’s products, making it a great place for students to discover their interests and passions. Fibrus’s display of its innovative sports equipment and Protein Works’s samples of its nutritional protein bars allowed students to understand each company’s goal, their daily operations, and their product development process, sparking ideas about how they could bring new ideas to their own career fields.

The Careers Fair did not only serve as an opportunity for students to meet employers, but also went beyond the conventional networking events, giving students practical resources and guidance to help them become more confident surrounding the job application process. Each employer helped offer feedback to students regarding CVs and resumes, interview approaches and skills needed which led to every student leaving the fair feeling much more confident and informed about the international job market and how they can contribute to the industries they are interested in. The fair also helped students feel more confident in developing their own skills, opinions and expanding their own horizons by exploring multiple different career trajectories.

On behalf of the Confucius Institute, we would like to extend our gratitude to each and every employer and their representatives who attended and helped each student in attendance become more comfortable and well-informed about the global job market and the process of applying to overseas jobs and internships.