Internships have become a necessity for graduates to secure jobs
The job market has become so competitive that even well-qualified graduates need to secure internships to find work
Twenty-three-year-old Baptist University graduate Trista Hon has reason to be excited. She is about to start working at BDO, an international accounting company, after beating many others for the position.
Hon attributes her success to her two-month working experience in Shanghai in the summer of last year. Hon took part in the government's Mainland Experience Scheme, a five-year pilot scheme launched in 2011 to sponsor short-term internships, or learning programmes, in the mainland for about 30,000 students.
Employers are looking for people who have been exposed to more than one field
"Auditing jobs require frequent travel to the mainland. It helps a lot that I have some understanding of working across the border. I can also adjust to working in the mainland better than other students," says Hon, who will be based in Hong Kong for the near future.
To prepare Hon for her stay in the mainland last year, Baptist University's career centre evaluated her fluency in Putonghua, along with her ability to cope with emergencies when working outside the territory.
In the current competitive economic environment, internships can give potential graduates a head start. Every day, recruiters are flooded with applications from university students who possess stunning academic credentials.
"We come across graduates with impressive academic and extra-curricular credentials all the time," says Sue Kim, founder of LIBBLER, an online platform established two years ago that is dedicated to the development of new graduates, and job matching.