NSU's National Career Fair addresses a market failure employers and graduates both feel

Syed Mansur Hashim | Published: January 24, 2026 22:14:56

A partial view of North South University campus

Bangladesh produces degree-holders at scale, and employers still struggle to hire job-ready talent. Graduates struggle to land their first credible role. That paradox has a name: mismatch. It comes from information gaps, weak signalling, uneven skills, and hiring processes that reward networks over competence. A career fair directly attacks each of those problems in a single, high-density marketplace.
This matters because graduate unemployment in Bangladesh does not sit at the margins. The country had nearly 800,000 unemployed graduates in 2022, and the Labour Force Survey 2022 reported a 12 per cent unemployment rate for tertiary-educated people, the highest among all education levels. If graduates cannot convert education into employment quickly, families lose faith in formal education, employers widen their "experience required" filters, and the economy underutilises its human capital.
A career fair functions as infrastructure. It compresses the cost of search and evaluation for both employers and job seekers. That cost sits behind most hiring friction in Bangladesh's early-career market.
From noise to signal—how career fairs change the hiring game: Graduate hiring usually suffers from noisy signals: inflated CVs, generic templates, unverified claims, and shallow screening. A well-run career fair creates real-time signal. Employers meet candidates, test communication, gauge motivation, and verify baseline professionalism within minutes. Many fairs also run on-the-spot interviews, which shifts selection from "who knows whom" to "who can show up and perform".
This benefits employers because early-career hiring carries higher uncertainty than lateral hiring. It benefits graduates because it gives them a fast feedback loop. They learn what employers actually ask, what skills truly matter, and where they fall short. Previous editions of North South University's National Career Fair have featured over 50 seminars designed to help graduates understand career paths and organisational fit. That is employability training delivered in the same venue as recruitment, which increases conversion into real offers.
The alternative is what most graduates experience: sending CVs into voids, waiting weeks for responses that never arrive, and trying to decode what employers want from job descriptions written in corporate jargon. Career fairs collapse that timeline and make the process legible.
Hiring for potential, training for role fit: Bangladesh's private sector repeatedly reports difficulty filling skilled roles even as graduates queue for jobs. The Centre for Policy Dialogue found in 2021 that 46 per cent of employers reported shortages of skilled applicants for professional positions. The World Bank reported that 69 per cent of employers faced shortages for highly-skilled roles such as professionals, technicians, and managers. Employers often respond by raising entry requirements, which worsens exclusion and pushes graduates into underemployment.
Career fairs create a better compromise. Employers can recruit for potential, then train for role fit. They can identify high-intent candidates, shortlist quickly, and build a pipeline for internships, management trainee programmes, and entry-level tracks. This approach works because employers get to see candidates beyond their CVs, and candidates get to demonstrate qualities that do not fit neatly into application forms.
The mismatch between what universities produce and what employers need often shows up as "graduate readiness" gaps in communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and applied tool use. Career fairs expose those gaps without diplomatic cushioning. They also surface sectoral demand changes in real time: which industries hire aggressively, which roles appear repeatedly, and which skills correlate with shortlisting.
The 10th National Career Fair—infrastructure, not theatre: The Career and Placement Centre at North South University has been organising career fairs in Bangladesh since 2000. Initially introduced to serve NSU students, the initiative gradually expanded into a nationwide platform. The centre so far has successfully organised nine national career fairs, contributing to career development and strengthening industry-academia collaboration in Bangladesh.
The 10th National Career Fair is scheduled for February 01 to 03, 2026 at the NSU campus, being organised under the leadership of Dr Farzana Nahid, director of the Career and Placement Centre. More than 20,000 students and job seekers are expected to visit the fair to submit CVs, interact with employers, and participate in career-focused workshops.
The Career Fair reached major milestones under the transformative leadership of Prof Hannan Chowdhury, vice-chancellor of North South University and former director of the Career and Placement Centre. During his tenure, the fair was successfully organised four times in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011, laying a strong foundation for the national-scale event it has become today.
MGH Group has been confirmed as the title sponsor of the 10th National Career Fair, alongside over 100 company booths representing diverse sectors. Confirmed companies include bKash Limited, City Bank PLC, Eastern Bank PLC, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC, Meghna Bank PLC, IPDC Finance PLC, IDLC Finance PLC, Nagad, BRAC, Renata PLC, Apex Pharma Ltd, ACME Laboratories Ltd, Beximco Pharmaceuticals PLC, Share Trip, iPharma, Augmedix Bangladesh, Pathao, Runner Group, Partex Star Group, Navana Group, and Petromax LPG, among others. The fair will also feature participation from Japanese, Chinese, and Korean companies, highlighting its growing international engagement.
Sharmeen Soneya Murshid, adviser to the Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, will inaugurate the three-day event as the chief guest. Taskeen Ahmed, president of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be present as the special guest at the closing ceremony. Both ceremonies will be attended by distinguished dignitaries, corporate leaders, and notable alumni.
The fair will host workshops and seminars across all four schools of NSU: School of Business and Economics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, and School of Health and Life Sciences. Additional sessions will include panel discussions, CV writing workshops, and interview skills training.
Why scale matters: A career fair's importance rises with the scale and consistency of graduate output. North South University typically supplies the labour market with several thousand new degree-holders per cycle, often around 3,000 to 4,000 in recent years. At that scale, even small improvements in placement rates move the needle for employers, families, and the national early-career market.
Career fairs often drift into optics: banners, speeches, and photo ops that look good in annual reports but do not change hiring outcomes. Bangladesh cannot afford a graduate economy that produces credentials without conversion into productive work. Graduate unemployment and skill shortages can coexist, and Bangladesh demonstrates that coexistence openly. Career fairs do not solve everything, but they solve one core bottleneck: market coordination.
A career fair turns a fragmented, relationship-driven entry-level labour market into a searchable, comparable, and time-bounded marketplace. When a university runs such a platform at scale, it supports employers with faster hiring, supports graduates with faster entry, and supports the economy with better allocation of talent. For employers frustrated by the gap between credentials and competence, it offers direct access to thousands of candidates in a single venue. For graduates overwhelmed by opaque hiring processes and informal networks they cannot access, it offers a level playing field where performance matters more than connections.
With its nationwide reach and strong industry-academia collaboration, the National Career Fair 2026 reaffirms North South University's commitment to empowering future talent and strengthening Bangladesh's employment ecosystem. More importantly, it demonstrates what happens when universities treat career services as infrastructure rather than afterthought, and when employers treat graduate hiring as investment rather than risk management.
The writer is director, Public Relations at
North South University.
directorpr@northsouth.edu