“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• Should I do what I am good at or what I like? e
• How to go about my own online business? h
• How can I obtain a scholarship in my field? d

All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q1: Should I do what I am good at or what I like?

I am a 24 year old female graduated from faculty of Alsun four years ago. Once graduated, I started working as a translator for about a year. I was very skilful at that but I find it very pooring. Luckily I found another position as a secretary. I started this career and moved through 3 positions in 3 years, and in every place my managers say one thing "you have poor communication skills" and they begin to redirect me to the translation work, so I get the title of an administrative assistant but I am really a translator.

I've just finished a certificate in AUC called Administrative Professionals and one of its subjects were Communication Skills but no improvement did I make. I can perform all the secretarial work effectively but as they say I have "poor communication skills". I am now still in the third place where I moved, it is a multinational company and I like the place so much but I noticed that my manager began to redirect me to translation work. I do not want to work in translation but they direct me to that because I am better as a translator. So what do you think?

Should I do what I am good at? Or Should I do what I like?

R. Y. (Giza)

Replying:

Dear Ms. Y.

The issue you raised is not an easy one. The best answer is for one to do (work) in something he/she likes and is reasonably good at it.

We cannot judge objectively your translation abilities, however we left your message without editing and corrections, which shows your English writing is reasonably good by not outstanding.

Now, if most of the managers you dealt with raised the issue of your communication skills, definitely there is a problem concerning them. You did not explain what exactly ? is it dealing with others (for example you are too shy or to aggressive ) or is it writing skills ? We doubt it is writing anyway because you get assigned translation work, which requires lots of writing.

If you really hate translation, then the only answer is to try and get another job. If you can live with it, try and find out what could be done about your communication skills, and gradually work on improving them. Seek your manager / supervisor's guidance and ask for frequent feedback and on how you are doing / developing…. This may be of help. If not, then try and find something other than a secretary or a translator… there are lots of jobs out there that would not require intensive communications, these would be related to administration, logistics, sales administration, procurement, certain areas in personnel administration, registration (in a school, university, institute or training center) etc…

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q2: How to go about my own online business?

I have a question. I'm thinking about starting my own website. Now I know that I have to go to an ISP to reserve a domain name and to host the site. What I need to know is whether or not there are any legal paperwork that needs to be carried out. Do I need to register the site with a particular organization?

Since there's a possibility that I may be doing business through the site, or at least I'm hoping that I'd get advertising, does this mean that I need to register with any official entity to calculate taxes etc.?

I'm not too familiar with how these things work here in Egypt, so I'd appreciate as much detail as you can provide.

Many thanks for a very informative site!

L.M.W (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Ms. T.

It is good to have an entrepreneurial spirit. You can register a domain name and host a web site with a number of ISPs in Egypt, you can also do it online (paying via credit card) with service providers abroad, namely the US. Sometimes you get better deals.

This does not require any official permit or government paper work. What would require that would be if you form a company that will operate the online service and transact business. There are many basic forms of companies, all requiring at least a commercial register (segel togarri) and a tax card (since it is a business, it will have to invoice clients). Of course if this entity hires people, you will need to be registered with the Labor Office (maktab el aamal as well).

The above relates to the regulatory logistics of things, an audit firm could take are of this on your behalf. The most important issue is the "business case". What is it you want to do online ? Assuming it is not a "for fun" site that you maintain as a hobby, a commercial venture requires a business plan and focusing on products / services others will be willing to pay for.

You mentioned advertising revenues, most likely from selling online banners or email promotions. This could be the case, however, to sell this you need to have a popular web site with a high traffic of visitors and / or a large database of registered users. Without this, who would be interested to advertise on your site ? In other words you must have content that is sufficiently attractive to a large audience. A good example could be found in skill-link.com. It offers career advice, employment news, skill development tips etc… in addition to job vacancies. This is a strong reason for around 60,000 to visit its web site every month. It also has a database in excess of 59,000 registered users, growing by 1,000 every month. This is why skill-link.com sells ads. And this traffic did not come easily, it required lots of efforts and significant investment in promotion, people, content, maintenance etc…

So our real advice is, carefully think of the "business case", regulatory permits etc.. are the least of your worries.

You may want to consider a joint project with skill-link.com, leveraging their infrastructure and high traffic, in this case let us know by email.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q3: How can I obtain a scholarship in my field?

I'm a 25 years old Egyptian single female who graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University in May 2000 with a general GPA of Very Good with Honors. I'm a postgraduate pharmacist in Cairo. I've been working since graduation in the field of hospital pharmacy in a well respected private hospital in Cairo. I'm intelligent, ambitious, love to study and learn something new everyday and my English is very good.

I want to make some postgraduate studies in the pharmaceutical or chemistry field in a university at the States but since that is very costly, I can't afford it. So I'm looking for a commission or a sponsor who can offer me a free scholarship for one year or so in the USA.

I managed to get some names of sponsors and I already contacted them. Those are: the Fulbright Commission in Egypt, ORASCOM FOUNDATION (ONSI SAWIRIS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM) and FORD FOUNDATION .Unfortunately, none of them offers a scholarship in the pharmaceutical field!

So will you help me getting other names and addresses of Commissions for Educational and Cultural Exchange between the United States of America and the Arab Republic of Egypt that provides a free postgraduate fellowships at the Pharmaceutical field?

G. N. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Ms. N.

You are an ambitious person, and as per your message, you have already identified some of the key organizations in Egypt that offer scholarships. We are surprised of the Ford Foundation's response, since a few months ago, they announced a scholarship program that had no restrictions of field of study of even countries.

The two remaining routes you could follow would be:

• The British Council / Chevening Scholarship, which we announced a few weeks ago on skill-link.com (click here).
• To check the web sites of various colleges / schools of pharmacy in the USA and browse through the financing / aid sections. Some of them offer full or partial financing for those seeking to pursue graduate studies if they have good under graduate grades and can show they are promising students. This may require some effort from you, but is worth exploring.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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