# Hanyang's Career Fair Grows Fivefold as International Students Chase Korean Jobs > Attendance at Hanyang University's global career fair has jumped from 560 students to more than 2,500 in a year, mirroring a broader surge in foreign students looking to build careers in Korea after graduation. - Source: Korea First - Canonical URL: https://koreafirst.tv/article/hanyang-s-career-fair-grows-fivefold-as-international-students-chase-korean-jobs - Author: Korea First Staff - Section: Culture - Published: 2026-08-28T13:38:08.882Z - Updated: 2026-08-28T13:38:08.882Z - Tags: Hanyang University, international students, career fair, job market, internationalization, K-universities - Korean edition: https://koreafirst.tv/ko/article/hanyang-s-career-fair-grows-fivefold-as-international-students-chase-korean-jobs --- Hanyang University's career fair for international students drew 2,526 students and 35 participating companies to its third edition on Thursday, a dramatic jump from the 560 students and 11 companies that showed up when the event launched in August of last year. The growth has come in fast steps. A second edition in March 2026 pulled in 1,021 students and 26 companies, meaning attendance has grown roughly fivefold and the number of participating employers has more than tripled across just three events held over a single year. ## A Campus Built for the Numbers Hanyang can support a fair of that scale because of who is already on campus. The university counts 7,079 international students across its Seoul and ERICA campuses as of this August, the largest international enrollment of any four-year university in Korea, the product of what the school describes as a 30-year commitment to internationalization. ## Part of a Bigger National Shift Hanyang's fair is riding a wider wave. Korea counted 307,464 international students nationwide in 2026, up 21.3 percent from the year before, and a 2023 survey found that 63 percent of the roughly 188,000 international students polled hoped to stay in Korea after they graduate. A campus career fair, in that context, is less a niche event than a direct response to what a large share of the country's foreign student population says it actually wants. ## What Students Are Looking For For students, the appeal is concrete information they cannot easily get elsewhere. Angelina Chrysanta Antolis, a 21-year-old student from Indonesia, said online searches often lack direct answers, while a fair gives her solid information straight from the companies themselves. Navena, a 26-year-old student from India, said the event introduced her to a range of employers beyond the handful of household names, Samsung, Hyundai and Lotte among them, that dominate most students' first impression of the Korean job market. ## What Employers Are Looking For Companies came with their own pitch. Kim Min-a of Hoban Construction said foreign graduates often work more actively than Korean staff, a comment framed as a selling point for hiring internationally rather than a caveat. Lee Young-je of Hanpass said his company values meeting candidates face to face specifically to assess mindset and presentation, qualities he said are harder to judge from a resume alone. ## Support Beyond the Fair Itself The career fair sits inside a broader support structure the university calls the HY All-Care System, which bundles company visits, lectures, job camps, counseling and internship placement into a single track meant to carry international students from campus into the Korean workforce. Whether that pipeline can keep scaling at the pace the fair itself has grown may determine how many of Korea's international students actually get to stay. --- Originally published by Korea First. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://koreafirst.tv/article/hanyang-s-career-fair-grows-fivefold-as-international-students-chase-korean-jobs.