Danish Ambassador holds career fair for students at private residence

A Danish diplomat held a job fair at his private residence in Hanoi on Tuesday to connect Danish companies to the students of an undergraduate course jointly run by a Vietnamese university and a Danish business school.

Danish Ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen organized the event for about 30 Vietnamese students of the four-year bachelor of science in finance program, offered by the Danish Niels Brock Copenhagen Business College and Vietnam’s Foreign Trade University, to talk directly to some of the more than 130 Danish companies and their local business partners which are looking for qualified job candidates.

The students, the first batch of approximately 250 program enrollees, are poised to graduate this summer.

This was probably the first time an ambassador in the capital had hosted such a career expo for Vietnamese students.

Ambassador Nielsen thought of organizing the fair to introduce companies seeking personnel to soon-to-be graduates one month ago when he discussed recruitment issues with some Danish businesspeople.

He wanted to create a place where Danish firms could talk about future job opportunities with thoroughly trained Vietnamese students, Ambassador Nielsen explained.

Thomas Bo Pedersen, general director of the Vietnam business of workwear producer Mascot International, said that the fair served as a good chance for employers and students to get to know each other.

One of the problems foreign-owned firms like Mascot International are facing is Vietnamese employees are not always able to meet multiple requirements at the same time, Pedersen added.

The general director of IT company Esoftflow, Thomas Frisenberg, said that it is easy for him to recruit accountants or human resource managers because Vietnam has produced a high-quality workforce for these fields.     

But he finds it really hard to hire engineers who can speak foreign languages to deal directly with international customers even though local universities churn out a large number of IT graduates each year, Frisenberg complained.

Ambassador Nielsen expressed his hope that another expo would be held at his private home because he felt a very strong interest by both the employers and prospective employees at yesterday’s event.