By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Shahiddan Saidi

BANGI, Feb 24, 2016 – Students of The National University of Malaysia (UKM)  who will be graduating this year should make full use of the opportunities available now to start looking for a job in the future.

They can begin with internships at giant multinational corporations before identifying what they want to do in the longer term, said Director of the Career Development Centre of UKM (UKM-Karier ) Prof Dr Ishak Yussof.

He said UKM-Karier is organising several programmes so that undergraduates can attend talks on job opportunities and meet with representatives of local and international companies that are looking for new talent.

For instance, he said, there is cooperation between UKM and pharmaceutical and healthcare giant Novartis Corp, to search for talent among the university students.

“There are approximately 100 students who have come today to interview, although 35 people had registered earlier. Maybe at the beginning of this year when the new semester opens, the students are somewhat jaded. They must seize this opportunity,” he said after the opening of a road-show interview  session by Alcon Novartis, a subsidiary of the multinational Novartis, with the students, here today.

This is a continuation to the motivational talk delivered by President and Managing Director of the Novartis Corp (M) Sdn Bhd Michaela Dinboeck at UKM last December.

He said the company was appointed by the Ministry of Higher Education to conduct internship programmes for students and briefs students about employment opportunities while mentoring them.

According to him most of the students who applied for the interview were from the faculties of Pharmacy, Health Sciences, and Engineering and Built Environment.

He said Alcon runs three industry training programmes for students who are keen on working in the manufacturing of contact lenses, pharmaceuticals and marketing of their products.