The future looks bright for Bermudian students aiming to get into the global financial services and insurance industry in Halifax, Nova Scotia if the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University's latest careers event is anything to go by.

For the faculty put on the event with the help of Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI) on Friday to allow students to meet up with the big international players in the sector based right on their doorstep, including Flagstone Management Services (Halifax) Ltd., Butterfield Fund Services, Citco Fund Services, Meridian Fund Services and Marsh, and to sound them out about job opportunities.

The event, which was made up of a panel discussion and exhibits, was held particularly to promote some of the world's leading hedge fund administration companies and reinsurance firms which have set up in the Nova Scotian capital over the past 24 months.

Anna Cranston, assistant director of management career services, has been acting as the interface between the students and the companies and actively involved in developing the relationship between the two in terms of student career progression and company recruitment drives.

"I have been involved with the firms that have chosen to come to locate in Halifax," she said.

"I think also, with the companies' plans to create more than 1,200 jobs over the next five years, recruiting was one of the major selling points here in Halifax and Dalhousie with its graduates in financial services in particular, is one of the major players in that.

"The NSBI. made a point of meeting with those companies to tell them about the benefits of Halifax and we helped with the decision making in them coming here.

"They have come here with the expectation of graduates coming out of university with the right qualification and they are looking to recruit them.

"It is very exciting for new graduates that want to study in Halifax and I am certainly getting the signs from the company representatives that not only do they want to hire people who were born and bred in Halifax, but also the Bermudian students.

"A lot of the Bermudian students have trained here and they can go wherever they want afterwards, including back to Bermuda."

Ms Cranston said a big focus is on helping students with putting together their CV and job hunting, but a lot of them, Bermudians included, are quite self-sufficient when it comes to seeking employment.

"The connections that our students have back in Bermuda are so strong that they tend to be self sufficient in finding a job back home and I think these new companies in Halifax with links to Bermuda are going to help with that," she said.

"Our emphasis is on events and networking and creating connections and giving students an opportunity to connect with employers.

"We are also cultivating alumini relationships and using the contacts we have there with past students." The event itself was the first of its kind to happen at the university and with 200 students in attendance, it proved to be a big hit, according to Ms. Cranston.

"We were really trying to emphasise the education side of things such as the information sharing and looking at why the companies have chosen Halifax as a business destination and the opportunities that exist in the future with these financial firms," she said.

"I think we are talking about this as the first event of several - it may have a different emphasis in the future, depending on what type of employers are coming here and what they are looking for.

"But overall, the importance of recruiting students into the financial services sector is absolutely critical to companies success here in Halifax.

"They have put a lot of effort into filling they more senior positions and they have got the basic structure and they have got situations to fill.

"One of the big plusses is that, often if they have studied here, they want to return here and we want to keep them here."

Speaking to the Bermudian students, it is clear that they return to the Island after their studies because of the job opportunities, scholarships and sponsorships that exist there, but with the Halifax business market really opening up recently, allied with what they perceive as a politically unsettling environment for international employers back home, many more are thinking about going further afield to live and work and pursue their career and ambitions.

And the majority of these new jobs being created in Halifax are in accounting, administration, technology and research and development, said Ms. Cranston.

"I know that there is talk of bringing more financial services companies to Halifax and they are growing the sector," she said.

"They are trying to work on the infrastructure of that at the moment." The university currently has 60 Bermudian students enrolled on its courses, boasting an impressive 24 in the Faculty of Management alone, while, as a whole, almost 41,000 students attend Nova Scotia universities, 7,000 of which are studying business and commerce.

The faculty itself was founded about 100 years ago and runs Bachelor of Commerce Co-op and Bachelor of Management undergraduate programmes as well as an MBA programme, with a number of Bermudian students on each course.

The Commerce Co-op programme combines academic study with work experience to allow students to earn money, develop contacts and improve their CV and can be done as a general course or specialising in accounting, business management, entrepreneurship, finance, international business, marketing logistics or marketing management, to name but a few specialties.

Meanwhile, the Management programme prepares students for a career as a manager in the private, public or not-for-profit sectors, with four main fields of concentration from entrepreneurship and environmental studies to public sector and international development., while the MBA course focuses on developing students into effective and confident leaders in today's business environment.

And with such an impressive number and quality of Bermudian students going through Dalhousie University's doors, it looks like the links between the business centres in Bermuda and Halifax look set to continue for many years to come.