Students explore job opportunities at annual Global Talent Job Fair

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) held the 2026 Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District Global Talent Job Fair on 4 November 2026. Both Chinese and international students met nearly 60 employers offering various job opportunities.

The attending students came from universities across the city, including XJTLU, Soochow University, Renmin University of China Suzhou Campus, and SKEMA Business School’s Suzhou campus.

Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District Global Talent Job Fair

The event aimed to connect students with companies, especially ones that are expanding overseas. It also gave students a direct route to meet HR representatives or recruiters of those employers and submit their CVs.

Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District Global Talent Job Fair

Dr Xiaoyue Li, Vice President of XJTLU, opened the event. “I hope you will cherish this opportunity and translate what you have learned in the classroom into professional strengths in the workplace,” he said.

Dr Xiaoyue Li

Connecting China and the world

Matteo Turco, an Italian student in the second year of a Master's in International Business at SKEMA Business School, said that he is looking to leverage his existing expertise in logistics to transition into the sales and export department. “It's not my first time at a job fair, but this one is amazing,” he said. “It has more structure while also being friendly to international students.”

Matteo Turco

Besides final-year students, there was also an influx of Year One students at the job fair looking for opportunities. Tasya Karpovich from Russia and Sabina Nursultan from Kazakhstan were two of them; they are both in their first year at XJTLU, studying BSc Biopharmaceuticals and BSc Biomedical Sciences respectively.

“As Year One students, we have no expectations because almost all companies are looking for third- or final-year students, or even master's and PhD students,” Karpovich said. “So, we are looking for volunteering work where we can just gain experience and enter the field.”

Nursultan said they still handed out their CVs in the hope that recruiters might contact them if a suitable position comes up. They had successfully given out four CVs by the time of the interview.

Tasya Karpovich (middle) and Sabina Nursultan (right)

Participating employers included TE Connectivity, Suzhou Xiexin Box Light Technology Co., Ltd., HopeGoo, GoodWe Technologies Co., Ltd., BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd., and Gotion High-tech, spanning industries such as intelligent manufacturing, new energy, biomedicine, and cloud computing.

Yilin Song, HR Officer at Shanghai Ulink Bilingual School, stated that they are looking for global talent, as they are an international education institution. They currently employ staff from more than 20 different countries.

“The reputation of the University is why we are here, and I think the graduating students here actually prove it,” Song said.

Halfway through the job fair, Song reported that they had received about a dozen CVs from graduating students from a number of different countries, including those from Kuwait, France, and Brazil.

Yilin Song (right)

Xinli Sio, a Malaysian master’s student in linguistics at XJTLU’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, was attending the fair for the third time. “I hope to return to Malaysia after finishing my master’s in China, and help Chinese companies enter the Malaysian market,” she said.

Xinli Sio (right)

Support beyond recruitment

At the event, XJTLU provided student career advisers, including representatives from one-person companies (OPCs), start-up platforms, and employers, as well as alumni. The advisers gave one-to-one advice on industry knowledge, job-search strategies, OPC policy, and career planning.

One student who attended the one-on-one session, Sano Sire from Guinea, is a first-year student at Suzhou University of Science and Technology. Sire participated in a CV review session to assess and improve her current resume.

“The advisers pointed out a few places that I need to amend to catch the eyes of the recruiters,” Sire said.

Sano Sire (middle)

The Suzhou Industrial Park International Integration Service Center also advised foreign students on matters such as living and working in China.

Alongside the booths, research institutes and universities also had their own zone. Suzhou Institute of Systems Medicine recruited postdoctoral researchers and introduces their programmes. Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School and Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance at Shanghai Jiao Tong University also took part. Together, they gave students interested in research or further study a range of options.

Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School

This year, the event was hosted by the Suzhou Dushu Lake Universities and Colleges Development Union and co-organised by XJTLU Career Centre and XJTLU Global, with support from the Suzhou Dushu Lake Science and Education Innovation District Administrative Committee, the Suzhou Industrial Park Foreign Affairs Office, and the XJTLU Alumni Affairs Office.

The fair has run four times since 2023, continuously connecting employers, jobs, and students across Suzhou and the world.

By Xinmin Han and Vionna Fiducia Theja
Edited by Patricia Pieterse
Editorial support of Yilin Zhou