Education | 2,000 graduate jobs offered at IPM Careers Day

The Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM) held its Careers Day 2019 event yesterday, attracting 58 exhibitors from the public and private sector offering graduates more than 2,000 job vacancies. The positions vary from Chinese-Portuguese translation to gaming management, as well as many others.

Apart from the careers fair, IPM is also holding 17 career talks for students with major speakers coming from government departments and industry organizations.

The talks will be related to Macau’s role as the platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries – from how to become a pilot in Macau to introducing internship programs in Chongqing, Hengqin and overseas.

A local student, surnamed Choi, is currently studying hospitality. “It is quite easy to get a job because there are many ways [to get one],” said Choi, who added that Macau’s overall environment for employment is good.

Another student, surnamed Van, who is majoring in Chinese-English translation, thinks there is a low correlation between graduates’ majors and their final employment positions.

“I am not quite clear about [my] employment direction, because I know that the matching rate is not that high, […] it’s about 20 percent,” said Van. “I will choose a job based on the salary and the working hours.”

The student further expressed her unwillingness to do shift work and that she also expects a starting salary of MOP13,000.

Another local student, surnamed Au, said that his goal was to become a civil servant and that he hopes his starting salary can be above the average salary of Macau residents.

A fourth local student, surnamed Vong, said that when choosing an employer, he cares more about a company’s future and his future career development.

Vice-president of IPM Lei Ngan Lin said in her speech that more than 90 percent of the university’s graduates were successfully employed around one month after graduation, with an average starting salary of MOP16,676.

Lei also claimed that more than 70 percent of graduates found jobs that matched their majors, and that 10 percent work at the executive level.

The top four industries IPM graduates work in are the medical, social services, education and creative industries.

This year marks an historic new high for the number of participating organizations in the IPM Careers Day.

In addition, only one mainland company, which is a state-owned human resources company, was looking for candidates from IPM this year. The company hires employees for mainland public organizations and mainland- state owned companies.