Dubai International Academic City (DIAC), the UAE’s largest community dedicated to higher education, held its 11th Career Fair in partnership with Bayt.com, the Middle East’s premium job site. Concluding on 17 May, this year’s edition also includes a digital extension of the career fair powered by vFairs, a dynamic virtual environment where students can browse exhibitor booths, interact with employers and apply for vacancies online, enhancing the user experience for both exhibitors and job-seekers.

Over the past decade, the event has connected thousands of local students with recruiters. This year, the event has evolved into a borderless networking opportunity that, for the first time, matches international students and job-seekers with best-in-class employers using innovative technologies by offering virtual booths, online chat functions, a searchable resume database and webinars, allowing students from abroad to attend the event without needing to travel.

The event drew the participation of 27 universities and more than 60 companies, including Majid Al Futtaim, PwC, Daikin, Galderma, Talabat, Azadea, Addecco ME and Ghobash Group, which together offered over 300 job opportunities. Young job-seekers were presented with a wide range of employment opportunities including internships and entry-level roles in various disciplines such as HR, Finance, Sales, F&B, as well as Marketing and IT. In addition, the DIAC Career Fair supplemented its offering to students and job-seekers through workshops and trainings that will further enhance their skills-sets and professional development.

The on-site technology-enhanced career fair has been optimised with ScanShake’s CV Capture tool, a technology that captures job-seekers’ profiles and CVs digitally, and enables employers to bookmark the top candidates within the app and share it with the recruitment team.

Mohammad Abdullah, Managing Director of Dubai International Academic City and Dubai Knowledge Park, said: “The great turnout of students and recruiters at the onsite fair is testimony to the viability of such a large-scale event. Our collaboration with Bayt.com has enabled us to extend our offerings to the virtual space, and thus expand our reach across borders. The innovative technological approach allows us to connect students and universities with leading organisations that will further fuel homegrown talent to fulfill Dubai’s economic ambitions and diversification efforts.”

Commenting on the partnership, Muhammad Younas, General Manager at Bayt.com said: “The employment landscape is going through a technological revolution and we, at Bayt.com, are thrilled to collaborate with DIAC to deliver a one-of-a-kind career fair, equipped with top-notch recruitment technology. With rich features like the Talentera-powered searchable job board, ScanShake CV Capture App and a 3-day vFairs-powered virtual extension to the onsite event, we look forward to co-hosting the DIAC career fair in the future and taking the industry’s pioneering steps towards convenient, inclusive and engaging hiring events.”

The virtual career segment enables all participants to register with Talentera’s custom recruitment platform, offering intuitive job boards that enabled participants to use specific filters to find vacancies that match their skillsets, whilst enabling employers to scan profiles of potential candidates, shortlist them and to follow-up with them directly. Additionally, the digital component helps enable GCC students with exposure to a dynamic virtual environment where they can easily browse exhibitor booths, interact with employers, view on-demand content and apply for vacancies entirely from the comfort of their homes through vFairs.