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UFS Mock Interviews: Shaping career-ready graduates and tackling unemployment

23 May 2025 | Story Lilitha Dingwayo | Photo Lunga Luthuli

To get senior and postgraduate students ready for the world of work, the University of the Free State (UFS) Division of Career Services’ Placement Preparation Day, which was initiated in 2023, has grown into an annual workshop – Mock Interview Day – with this year’s event taking place in the Callie Human Centre on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Held on 14 and 15 May 2025, this UFS initiative – aimed at addressing employability – has evolved through the implementation of several educational subdivisions tasked with the responsibility of assisting all registered students understand the professional environment. One of these divisions is the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) ‘Graduate Attributes’ – an initiative that seeks to assess a student’s development of valuable attributes during lectures.

According to Belinda Janeke, Assistant Director of Career Services, “Feedback indicates that most students have no interview experience – a critical factor. It is through these mock interviews that students’ confidence is built and their transition from student to employee is smoothened.”

With the assistance of staff members and employees in conducting the interviews, the two-day initiative has seen evident success in both attendance and reach. “Yesterday we had about 90 students come in for the mock interviews and all of them stated that it was their first time being interviewed,” said Janeke. “Even though our office is situated on the Bloemfontein Campus, we also visit the South and Qwaqwa campuses to ensure accessibility across all three UFS campuses,” Janeke added. Emphasising results, she shared that in the 12 years she has been working in this division, student engagement has grown due to improvements in technology.

Career Services sends out letters and emails on the 11th of each month to recognise the achievements of students who have used their services. In collaboration with the UFS’ Vision 130, more directions are being explored across the three campuses, starting with the cross-campus Shoe Camp project.

This initiative targets all UFS students, prioritising senior individuals on the cusp of job hunting. “As a postgraduate student, I am looking into getting a job next year and I have never been interviewed before, so I needed the trial run to get more information on accurate interview etiquette,” said Aphiwe Mbutuma, an Administration honours student. Mbutuma said the support she received from the staff was crucial in boosting her confidence for her next interview. She further described the experience as an eye-opener, adding that students should seize these opportunities to understand what is expected of them. Zukile Daki, a second-year student in the Faculty of Law, said: “I once bombed an interview, so I came here to improve, and it went well.”

News Archive

Free State Receives R7 Million Grant from the Mellon Foundation for Arts Innovation

2015-11-30

Man in the Green Blanket, Lesiba Mabitsela.
Photo: Karla Benade

Bloemfontein will experience a flood of new, experimental art over the next four years as a result of R7 million that has been received to develop experimental art projects in central South Africa. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation recently awarded the grant to the University of the Free State (UFS) for the Programme for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD). Initiated jointly by the UFS and the Vrystaat Arts Festival in 2014, PIAD was established as a programme to promote the exploration of the arts to advance interdisciplinary research and to impact on human development.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a New York-based, non-profit organisation which endeavours to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing, and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies.

“The Innovation in Artform Development initiative will provide an important contribution to the ways in which the university hopes to broaden and deepen research and dialogue about the humanities in South African society. Using the arts as a vehicle to engage communities around issues of social significance, makes for an exciting endeavour, and we are happy to have Mellon’s financial and partnership investment in this initiative,” said Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

“This substantial support from the Foundation will play a pivotal role in facilitating collaborations with national and international artists to explore new, innovative modes of artistic practice and creative production in South Africa,” said Angela de Jesus, UFS Art Curator and Co-Director of PIAD.

“A series of First Nations projects, arts/science research and artist residencies, arts laboratories for creative practitioners, the production of exciting new work for Bloemfontein, and critical debates/forums is expected over the next few years,” she added.

PIAD focuses on supporting cross-cultural, experimental art programmes that can assist South African society creatively. For this process, PIAD is engaging the skills and expertise of South Africa artists in collaboration with several international partners, who are recognised as global leaders in this field, to develop a mutually- beneficial programme of engagement.

Innovation, technology, and new forms of art will be explored and international collaborations that have the potential to attract benefits for the creative industries in Bloemfontein and beyond will be introduced.

“The artistic landscape of the Free State - in fact the whole South Africa - will be forever changed because of this extraordinarily generous grant. Rarely does a regional community get a chance to lead innovation on a national scale, and also impact on experimental art internationally. We are in for an incredible artistic journey,” said Dr Ricardo Peach, Director of the Vrystaat Arts Festival and Co-Director of PIAD.

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