The School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) has successfully organized and conducted “Internship Workshops” for the students studying in their last semester of undergraduate programme. The internship workshops focused on the capacity development and job placement of students. The internship workshops included the following topics: resume writing, interview tips, basic interview skills, self-assessment, exploring organizations, career guidance and also mock interviews. The first workshop was held on 24th August, 2019 and it was facilitated by Adjunct Faculty and Internship Coordinator, School of Business, Zubayer Zakir Khan who shared CV writing methods and tips with the students. Farin Daulah – Faculty of North South University and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Yellow Brick Road (YBR) participated as a guest speaker. Farin shared some tips on cover letter writing and general CV writing tips. She also talked about her organization Yellow Brick Road (YBR) which raises awareness on social emotional education and focuses on teaching valuable life-skills to adolescents, youth, parents and teachers. Another guest speaker, Zeeshan Zakaria who is the Head of Pastoral Care and Teacher at International School Dhaka (ISD) shared some interview tips and discussed basic etiquettes to maintain during a job interview. The workshop was an hour long session which focused on CV writing, cover letter writing, interview tips and skills.
The 2nd workshop was held on 31st August, 2019. The workshop was taken by UN Women who discussed various topics like – career guidance, the work on UN Women, the ways to get into the UN system and general career tips. The workshop was facilitated by Syeda Samara Mortada – Communications Analyst UN Women and Punna Islam – UN Volunteer. This hour-long session was motivating for the students as they got to know about the work of UN Women in Bangladesh. They also gained better understanding of the development sector and also how to apply for positions/internships in UN Women and other UN agencies. Some videos were also shown to the students to further strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the type of projects that UN Women work on.
The 3rd Workshop, “Mock Interviews” was held on 2nd September, 2019 where 8 different companies participated. Human Resource personnel from these organizations conducted the mock interviews. The participating organizations were: BRAC, Bikroy, Maya, Sindabad, Jarvis Digital, Steeltech, Magnito Digital and Dhaka Tribune.
Honorable Dean, School of Business, Dr. Prof. Mohd. Aminul Karim also visited the mock interview sessions and had discussions with the participating companies. This was followed by a speech from Adjunct Faculty and Internship Coordinator Zubayer Zakir Khan. The 8 participating companies also stepped on to the stage to talk about their companies, what skills they are looking for, the present job market, youth employment trends, etc. The seminar was followed by 3 hour long mock interview sessions. In total, the session was 4 hours long. After the interviews, all HR professionals also provided feedback to students.
These 3 workshops contributed tremendously to the capacity development of students and it gave them additional confidence before stepping into the workplace. IUB will take more initiatives like this in the future and will keep working with students to develop their capacity in various topics.
