Employers in Macao and further afield are still keen to hire additional IFTM graduates for their teams, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. That was made clear during the 2022 edition of the Institute’s Career Day, a job fair for IFTM students and alumni, held on 3 March at the Taipa Campus.
A total of 67 organisations participated, up 20 percent from the 2019 edition, before the start of the pandemic.
IFTM graduates “have more knowledge on hospitality” than graduates from other local higher education institutions, says a recruitment representative from a 5-star hotel in Macao that is a regular participant in IFTM Career Days. It is “truly easier” to work with such hired graduates than other recruits, said the representative.
More than 1,300 job positions were on offer at this year’s event, i.e., equivalent to roughly 3 times the actual number of students expected to conclude their studies at IFTM in the current academic year, either at graduate or postgraduate level.
Studying at IFTM does pay off. According to an employment survey conducted by the Institute in November last year, most bachelor’s degree programme students graduating in academic year 2020/2021 were enjoying attractive salaries within 6 months of completing their studies. The survey’s data indicated that 2 in every 3 IFTM graduates had already found work within that time frame, with an additional 13 percent choosing to further their studies.
The full-time employment rate among people completing a master’s degree programme at IFTM in academic year 2020/2021 stood at 83.3 percent, data from the survey showed. These people enjoyed a median monthly salary of MOP19,000, 20 percent above the overall median monthly salary in Macao.
Greater Bay Area opportunities
The 2022 IFTM Career Day attracted employers from inside as well as outside Macao. Some 16 percent of organisations at the event came from the Mainland, including not only neighbouring Guangdong Province, but also further afield, namely Shanghai.
A particular focus of the job fair in recent years has been the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The region is seen as a growth engine for the Chinese economy as a whole, offering many career opportunities for young professionals.
During the 2022 IFTM Career Day, the Institute hosted 2 seminars on career prospects and career development in the Greater Bay Area. They were organised by the Alliance for Developing Macao into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Tourism Education and Training Base. It is a Macao-based coalition, bringing together local government bodies and local higher education institutions. IFTM acts as the coordinating unit.
Nidus Enterprise Group was one of the organisations with a Greater Bay Area presence that attended the 2022 IFTM Career Day. The group’s operations range from hospitality to cultural tourism. Founder and managing director Ms. Gloria Chang was a speaker at one of the career prospect seminars. She says Nidus attended the IFTM Career Day in search of fresh talent.
“The people we seek should possess insights concerning the Mainland and Macao markets, and preferably display understanding of international markets as well,” Ms. Chang states.
She explains the Greater Bay Area is still something of a novel concept. That is why Nidus was looking at IFTM as a source of young would-be professionals able to display innovative thinking and capable of anticipating new trends and opportunities linked to the city cluster project.
The 2022 IFTM Career Day also showed there was employer interest outside the tourism and hospitality industry when it comes to hiring Institute graduates.
An example is information technology company Pachira Enterprises Ltd, specialising in artificial intelligence technology. The Pachira parent company was established in Beijing in 2010, moving to Hengqin in 2018. Pachira Enterprises representative Mr. Xu Haokeng explains the group entered the Macao market last year.
He highlights that the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred new job opportunities in the technology sector, as demand for products in new areas of business – such as smart tourism and smart hotels – has soared. Though he notes: “Human resources in this field are not sufficient.”
Mr. Xu adds: “We work with different higher education institutions to organise activities for recruitment.” The firm has been looking to the IFTM pool of graduates to provide creative and innovative minds.
The finance and banking industries were also strongly represented at the latest Career Day. Mr. Peter Wong, from the human resources department of Banco Nacional Ultramarino, S.A. (BNU), says a number of IFTM graduates has found jobs in banking in recent years.
“English is the internal medium of communication in BNU,” he states. “We pay great attention to the English-language level of job applicants, and IFTM candidates normally perform well in this regard.”
The BNU representative also points out that graduates from IFTM usually perform well in job interviews and are typically well-prepared job candidates.
Confident in the future
Among the scores of IFTM students attending this year’s Career Day was Leona Ao Chi San, from the Hotel Management Bachelor’s Degree Programme. She has already received a job offer as a manager-in-training in the room services department of the hotel where she performed her IFTM curricular internship. Nonetheless, she attended the Career Day because she wanted to learn more about the current employment situation in Macao’s tourism and hospitality industry.
Leona praises the education she has experienced at IFTM, including opportunities to gain practical industry know-how. She says the role of student projects in IFTM’s education setup – and managing that workload – has helped her to learn how to cope with the sort of pressure she might face in a workplace setting.
Another Year 4 bachelor’s degree student to visit the Career Day was Carlos Chang Kin Hei. The Cultural and Heritage Management student says he expects it will not be too difficult for him to land a job once he completes his IFTM studies later this year, despite the challenges linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I have experience in public relations working as a student helper at IFTM,” he says. “I am quite open to working in other areas,” adds Carlos, highlighting that having a positive attitude is important for fresh graduates entering the labour market.
- Air Macau Company Limited
- Alibaba Cloud Macau Limited
- Artyzen Grand Lapa Macau & Grand Coloane Resort
- AXA China Region Insurance Company (Bermuda) Limited
- Banco Delta Asia S.A.
- Banco Nacional Ultramarino, S.A.
- Banco Well Link, S.A.
- Bank of China Limited Macau Branch
- Bvlgari Hotel Shanghai
- CDFG Macau Limited
- Chanel Limitada
- China Hotel, Guangzhou
- China Life Insurance (Overseas) Company Limited Macau Branch
- Christian Dior Macau Single Shareholder Company Limited
- Coffee Concepts (Macau) Limited
- Crowne Plaza Macau
- CSI Group
- DFS Cotai Limitada
- EvolutionHR Consultancy Limited
- Four Seasons Hotel Macao
- Galaxy Entertainment Group
- Grand Emperor Hotel
- Grand Hyatt Macau
- Guangdong Chao Ting Group Co,. Ltd
- Guangdong Tinyuet Catering Management Group And Shunde Ronggui Restaurant Association
- Guangzhou Lingnan Garden Dajiaoshan Hotel Development Co., Ltd
- Heinemann Macau Ltd.
- Hotel Lisboa
- Hotel Royal Macau
- Imperial Family Real Estate Investment (Macao) Company Limited
- Jardine Restaurant Group
- JC Human Resources Consulting (Macau) Company Limited
- JW Marriott Hotel Macau and The Ritz-Carlton, Macau
- L’Arc Macau
- Lisboeta Macau
- LN Garden Hotel Guangzhou
- Louis Vuitton Macau Company Limited
- Macau Fisherman’s Wharf
- Macau International Airport Company Limited (CAM)
- Manulife (International) Limited
- Melco Resorts & Entertainment
- MGM
- MSS Recruitment
- hello-jobs.com
- NetCraft Information Technology (Macau) Co. Ltd
- New Yaohan
- Nidus (International) Group Limited
- Pachira Internacional Tecnologia Lda.
- Ronggui Deer Hill Hotel, Shunde District, Foshan
- Sands China Ltd.
- Sheraton Grand Macao & The St. Regis Macao
- SJM Resorts, S.A.
- Small World Entertainment
- Social Security Fund
- Talentgroup Asia Limited
- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
- The Labour Affairs Bureau
- The Nuance Group (Macau) Limited
- Uniqlo Hong Kong, Limited Macau Branch
- Unique Timepieces Watches Macau Limited
- Wynn Resorts (Macau) Limited
- YF Life Insurance International Limited
- Zhuhai Chimelong Investment & Development Co., Ltd.
- Zhuhai Dahengqin Yingcai Human Resources Services Company Limited
