On 12th March 2014, Ashesi’s Career Services held its 8th Annual Career Fair, which attracted over 50 organisations to campus. Headline Sponsors for this year’s fair were Child and Associates, General Electric (GE), ThoughtWorks Africa, Fidelity Bank, Total Petroleum, CAL Bank, Tigo and Oxford and Beaumont.
The Ashesi Career Fair is a one-day event that brings the entire Ashesi community (students, alumni, faculty and staff) together with representatives from several industries across Africa. The fair provides opportunities for interaction at various career development levels, helps participants understand the challenges and opportunities that exist in the work environment and creates a platform for recruiting Ashesi students and alumni.
“The diversity at this fair was great,” said one graduating student. “We had the chance to truly explore different career paths.” Some of the organisations present at the fair were Airtel Ghana, Google Ghana, Global Media Alliance, Right to Dream Academy, Easy Taxi, Unilever and L’aine Services.
“It was a great opportunity for students to network,” added Winifred Quartey-Papafio ’15. “Students who won the various competitions also had amazing prizes and I think this will inspire students to work harder.”
For most organisations present, the highlight of the fair was the quality of interactions they had. “The organisation of the fair was impressive”, said Grace Amenyogbeli of African Women’s Development Fund. “The hospitality (of the Ashesi community) and the interaction with students and alumni were great as well!”
Several competitions also run as the career fair progressed. The most celebrated this year were the “Elevator Pitch”, which required students to convince a prospective employer to hire them within a 60-second time limit, and the Programming competition, which had students writing mini-software to solve a set of problems. Akosua Dei-Anang ‘15 won the Elevator Pitch competition, while the Programming competition was won for the second year in a row by Habeeb Aremu ‘14.
Companies that sponsored awards for the competitions were ThoughtWorks Africa, Rancard Solutions, General Electric (GE), Unilever, Ernst and Young, Airtel, Growth Mosaic, Petra Trust, Groupe Nduom, Tullow Oil, Sci-fi Web Technologies, Middlesex University, Kwaaba Vacations and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation.
“The annual career fair is about creating opportunities for networking, brainstorming business ideas and is an avenue for employers to share recruitment opportunities with the Ashesi community,” said Abigail Lartey, Assistant Director of Career Services at Ashesi. “It was encouraging to see that this year we had several new companies attending and expanding the variety of participating industries. It was also exciting to welcome our first public sector company, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, to the fair this year. Even though the organisation has been recruiting from Ashesi, it is the first time it has been represented, and we hope to see more.”