The University of Macau (UM) holds a series of career talks and career fairs every year. The Student Affair Office (SO) is in charge of organizing and arranging these series of activities. Those events are aimed to let students, especially potential graduates understand the current situation of the job market and obtain employment information. Among potential graduates, there are more and more students coming from mainland China who are also eager to find jobs. Many of the students find that these activities are not really useful for them.

Si Tou Ieng Kit, head of SO said all the relative events aim to help all the potential graduates. It is very useful for students as they can become more confident and knowledgeable through the seminars. In career fairs, companies recruit new employees. But for non-local students, they are not very appropriate. He said, "That's because employments are restricted by the Labor Law of Macao and policies of respective companies. It is an employer's responsibility to apply for labor permits for recruits who are not local residents."

That means mainland students are in a different situation compared to the local students. "But it doesn't totally mean there isn't any opportunity. There are some offshore companies that are located in mainland China in career fairs as well. For example, there are some offshore companies in Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, etc. In this situation, mainland students will be considered and be recommended," he added. Si Tou also mentioned there were two to three mainland potential graduates recruited by KPMG accounting company in a career fair two year ago.

Ivy Yang, a potential graduate from Zhuhai majoring in accounting, thinks the career fair is meaningless for her because most companies prefer local students.

Huang Wei, another potential graduate from Fujian Province, said, "As I know that there were several mainland students who were firstly hired, but their labor permits were not approved, so they had to give up at last. I think the situation this year may be better than before. There is a huge demand in the labor market in Macau right now, so there may be some private companies which will consider us."

Julia Zhang, a potential graduate from Sichuan, also agrees with Yang. She said, "We hope UM will offer us more opportunities. After completing four years of study here and we would like to contribute what we have learned to the Macau development. Moreover, we also expect that UM can pay more attention to us and show more concern about our employment after graduation. It is helpful if the University could contract lots of mainland companies and invite them to the career fair so that we can get more information and chances."

As Si Tou sees the number of mainland potential graduates increase, he said SO will consider inviting some mainland companies in future careers fairs and offer more career services including traineeship and internship programs to mainland students.