Bioconnect 2021

At present time, jobseekers are faced with lots of competitors and high selectivity. Therefore, we have to prepare ourselves and discover possible career paths as early as possible. Last month, the External Events division of SBE UISC 2021 successfully held an event called Bioconnect. In this event, members learned about career paths in bioprocess and chemical engineering-related fields and gained basic knowledge on specific industries. “We hoped that Bioconnect could give participants more insights about work life, especially the ones related to FMCG industries,” said Dita Kartika, our Deputy Director of External Events.

This year’s Bioconnect is different from last year’s. Not only one-sided sharing sessions from our mentors, but participants also got the chance to have exclusive 10 on 1 mentoring session with them. We invited 9 bioprocess and chemical engineering alumni from Universitas Indonesia to be the mentors in separate breakout rooms. Our mentors come from different industries such as water hygiene, nutrition, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, household chemicals, and specialized chemicals. The event was executed through Zoom online meeting platform and divided into two sessions. The first session was held on April 24, 2021, and the second was on May 1, 2021.

The first session started out with a sharing session from mentors about their organizational experiences, internship, the company they currently work in, and what they do in their role. Although not all of our mentors are process engineers, they claimed that some of their chemical and bioprocess engineering knowledge is still applicable in their current roles. Besides, it is very possible for them to learn other required skills that differ from chemical and bioprocess engineering core competencies after graduating or during internships. All of our mentors agree that internships are really important to give us overviews of what it’s like to work. Not only that it taught us about the application of our major-related core competencies, but internships also train us to communicate professionally, make reports, and other soft skills.

Our mentors also gave us some tips on career preparation. Common stages of job recruitment involve application selection, online test, focus group discussion, HR interview, and user interview. When preparing for our first job, we have to discover our passion and roles that suit ourselves. We can look for opportunities through social media, job fairs, and alumni. Then, we have to prepare our portfolio by creating an impressive CV, updating our LinkedIn profile, and upgrading our skills. Besides that, we also have to find out about the values of the company we’re applying to, prepare the answers to interview questions, as well as practice for interviews and FGD. The sharing session was followed by a QnA session. At the end of the first session, mentees were asked to write about their purpose, dreams, and motivations, or a cover letter for a desired position. The assignment was then reviewed at the second session on the following week.

One of our mentees, Dyah Nurcahyani from Bioprocess Engineering Universitas Indonesia batch 2020, said that Bioconnect has exposed more chemical engineering-related industries and skills that are needed for work, as well as motivated her to consider her career paths starting from her first year of college. This year’s Bioconnect has brought us lots of fun and insight about bioprocess and chemical engineering. We hope to be enlightened and inspired by other mentors to come. See you on our next Bioconnect!