The American University Phnom Penh (AUPP) successfully held its third annual career fair on October 10, 2024, featuring the participation of 25 companies, including financial institutions, HR firms, insurance companies, and more.
The fair provided AUPP students and alumni a chance to explore potential internships and job opportunities with participating companies, helping to build their professional networks.
“The main reason [for the career fair] is to give students a connection to the industry, because in real life, they really just can't walk into a bank, for example, and start talking about the career opportunities and what's required,” Yamuna Sithambalam, Assisstant Professor of Business at AUPP, told B2B Cambodia.
She added that AUPP has been receiving positive feedback from the participating companies at previous job fairs as well, having connected with students and successfully recruited some for internships and further employment opportunties.
“Career fairs are the most valuable for companies and financial institution, especially for us at Chief Bank,” shared Mam Chandara, Senior Manager at Chief Bank, which was the Platinum Sponsor of the career fair. “We provide good opportunities for students, especially fresh graduates who are seeking new jobs.”
He added that his company looks for both hard and soft skills across a range of different departments – including operations, IT, credit risk, accounting and administration – meaning students have a variety of internship opportunities they can apply for.
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While the main career fair took place on the ground floor of the university building, a special panel discussion under the topic “Roadmap to Career Success: Trends and Strategies for Growth” was also held at the AUPP Technology Centre (ATC) hall, open to students and other participants.
Moderated by Vong Thida, Head of HR Services at HR Strategic Partner (Optimal P), the panel featured Dr. Ng Tek Ming, Dean of the School of Digital Technologies at AUPP; Kim Tol Tan, CEO of Grow4Growth Consultant; Soun Satya, Manager & Talent Acquisition at DKSH; and Josep Font Rodendo, Sales Manager & Asia Director of NCT Consultants. The main discussion centred on sharing experiences across different fields about how one can build a successful career path.
Cambodian Job Market 2024 – Current Trends
Digital transformation has had one of the most significant impacts on the types of skills and degree accreditations in high demand across all sectors in Cambodia, and across the world.
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Speaking to B2B Cambodia, Thida highlighted technical digital degrees in cyber security, computer science and software engineering as very high in demand for many companies, as well as technical certification for roles in UI or UX design, data science and data analysis.
With close to 10 financial institutions participating in the university career fair, she also commented on their large presence at AUPP, which offers degrees in some of those high-demand technical digital skill areas.
“We can see that a lot of banks are at the career fair, and I would say it's related to the university program… because at AUPP, there's a lot of majors related to what banks currently need, especially in areas like cyber security, computer science, web development,” said Thida.
She added:
Almost every bank has moved to an online and digital platform, so it's really important for them to come to a school that has a curriculum that matches their needs. On top of that, I would say the school culture also shapes students, so on top of the functional skill [gained], it's also their interpersonal skills, including communication and problem solving, which are important. Most of international schools, I can see, equip students well with those [interpersonal skills] on top of their functional skill.
Watch a snippet of our interview with Vong Thida:
Professor Sithambalam also commented on the increased focus on new roles related to big data analysis and analytics, which have become crucial for decision making at many businesses.
“That is why, in our curriculum, we try to integrate business analytics, marketing analytics, so that students, when they are out [in the real world], are able to analyse big data to make decisions as the Director, CEO or manager of a company. Even finance and accounting, the way it's done now is different from the past, where before it was all about bookkeeping with paper and pen. We [incorporate] digital software, Excel, and other integrated methods [in our teachings] to train students, because how people work now has changed tremendously," shared Sithambalam.
Thida also noted that the job market in Cambodia has evolved post-COVID to one that is more balanced, as more students and young people become aware of trends in the market.
Before COVID, there was a bit of oversupply in some areas like finances, marketing, business administration, international relations, but in the current market, because the young generation gets a lot of information and updates about market trends through job fairs and on the internet, they can see what skills are in high demand and tend to choose [to study in] those areas rather than choose where they want to, so I would say the market is more balanced now.
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Advice To Student Job Seekers And Employers In Cambodia
In terms of the main takeaways from the career fair for both students and participating companies, Professor Sithambalam stressed the need for alignment between studies and current industry trends, as well as more collaboration between companies and educational institutions.
[Students] cannot just be complacent and say ‘this is enough’ because nothing is enough in this very fast changing environment. They need to keep themselves updated regularly, even once they graduate and leave AUPP, they still need to take some short courses from time to time so that they can keep their jobs and be relevant to their organisation.
Watch a snippet of our interview with Professor Yamuna Sithambalam:
“For job seekers as well, I think they need to partner a lot with the universities and educational institutions to work on projects. That's one initiative that we would like to have with companies… so that we can give students the opportunity to work on real projects and solve problems for the companies. This way it's a gain for both the companies and the students – the students get experienced, and companies have their problems solved,” the professor added.
“One thing I can assure, or which I've observed, is that students nowadays, because of their exposure to digital transformation, their creativity can be really useful for organisations. It's not necessary that [companies] always have to use experts who are going to be costly, they can work with universities to have their problems solved as a part of an assignment or project within a program students are studying in," she concluded.