Sophia University and TUJ Jointly Held the First “International Students Virtual Career Fair in English”

13 Participating Companies Met 224 International Students and Bilingual Japanese Students

Sophia University and Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ) jointly held an “INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS VIRTUAL CAREER FAIR in English,” an online career fair on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 (operated by Energize Inc.). A total of 13 companies participated, with 224 students including 119 international students participating from inside and outside Japan.

All of the company introductions and Q & A sessions were held in English for this career fair, which was mainly carried out for international students and Japanese students with strong English language skills. Corporate overviews, recruitment, and documents were provided at each company’s booth set up in virtual space through videos and downloadable files. In addition, students participated in real-time Q&A sessions with representatives of the companies using chat and video features. Lively discussions took place at each booth.

With over 2,400 international students along with many globally oriented Japanese students enrolled in both Sophia University and TUJ, a total of 7 career fairs had been co-hosted in English in the past, but this was the first such event to be held online.

Moving forward, both universities plan to continue holding events that combine multicultural experiences while supporting students as they work hard to enhance their language skills and utilize their studies to explore career opportunities in Japan after graduation.

Comments from Participating Companies

• The participating students demonstrated more interest than originally anticipated, and it was gratifying to receive so many questions.
• Holding explanatory meetings in online virtual booths was very appealing from a cost perspective. It was also meaningful for our company to participate in the sense of raising awareness of our company’s image and brand.

Participating companies (in an alphabetical order):
AVTEL Limited, Bloomberg L.P., IIJ Global Solutions Inc., The Kraft Heinz Company, Meltwater Japan K.K., Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp., SANYO DENKI CO., LTD., State Street Trust and Banking Co., Ltd., TEKsystems, UPS Japan Co., Ltd., and others.

Comments from Career Staff Members from Each University

Sophia University Career Center
The traditional face-to-face style and this online style each have their benefits. Allowing participants to join from anywhere in the world and enabling efficient communication between many companies and students without limiting the number of participants are advantages that are unique to online events. Moving forward, we would like to consider measures for support that take advantage of the benefits.

TUJ Career Development Office
The recruitment of global human resources is compatible with online fairs as they are not restricted by location. From the university’s perspective, we would like to create as many online events for our students to meet companies as possible. This would enable us to build a support framework that allows students to adapt to today’s global changes while recognizing and utilizing the advantages of such events.