“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• I was transferred and I do not like it, which way to go ?

• I am searching for a scholarship, can you help ?

• I am seeking a marketing job in Gaza, what to do ?

• Desperate to find what I want, can you help ?

• What should an executive secretary do to define her goals ?

• What is the best option for me in my final year of college ?

• How can I get into a ‘Big 4’ audit firm ?

• Time is running, must I love what I do, or do what I love ?

• I am still unemployed, what are the skills I really need ?

• How can I work for an Embassy in Cairo ?

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:I was transferred and I do not like it, which way to go ?

I wish if you could have few minutes to read my problem because I'm really in a desperate need for career / professional advice . I am sorry to tell you that my e-mail won't be a short one, yet I'm hopping you'd be able to read it out:

After graduating from a Faculty of Commerce, majoring in Accounting in September 2000, I worked for a large mobile services company as a Customer Service Representative and stayed there for almost 10 months. Then I shifted to work in a Shipping Co.- the one I'm working for now- for a much lower salary for the sake of working in my field (accounting and finance). I was so happy and successful and satisfied with my position as Agencies Accountant, however it lasted only for 3 years, then all of a sudden due to sudden resignation of one of our key employees responsible for commercial shipping, the Owner decided to bring someone else to have my job and for me to be transferred to that ex employees job which is something  that is totally out of interest for me and totally out of my career line.

I showed my opposition in as a decent way as possible, as I was told in the beginning that this move is not mandatory and that I have a choice weather to approve or not, however it was. It ended up that I'm not gaining experience in the financial field and I'm not interested in gaining much in the shipping field

Therefore I feel that my career is frozen, I've been working in this company for almost 4 years now and I don't have the experience in finance that someone with 4 years of experience should have.

I tried to apply for many jobs that might suit my career, but unfortunately there was no luck, and I'm not interested in shifting my career to anything else but finance.

What would you advise me? to give up and surrender to the fact that I should change my career? or not to give up and keep on searching? meantime would appreciate advising how to upgrade my finance / accounting skills.

DESPERADO !

Y. F. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Ms. F.

As we often say, you should not apologize for sending details about your situation, this is the only way we can understand your case and attempt to address it. It is good you are very clear on what you like, a privilege many other young professionals in Egypt cannot claim. We do not know exactly what the job duties of the position you were transferred to are, it is wise to think that maybe it will enrich your experience in another way (think how many in Egypt are experts in shipping and maritime transportation versus experts in general accounting & finance. Another thing we would like you to ask yourself, in your original position “Agencies Accountant” were you advancing and learning new things over time, or would it have been boring after a while when you would have mastered it ? Not every accounting job includes advancement and growing responsibilities.

Unless it is (ie. the job transfer) a serious downgrade in terms of responsibilities, complexity and involvement, you may wish to see it as a vote of confidence from your company’s management. You should always put yourself in the shoes of your management, why did they transfer you to that new role as opposed to hiring a new person in the vacant position ? The following could be the reasons:

a) they thought that you would be a good fit there, after knowing you and assessing your performance in your previous position,

b) they needed someone who knows the company’s business (as opposed to an outsider) and hence selected you,

c) they thought someone else could perform your previous job better and that your skills would better match the new position.

While we can only guess which of the above is the true reason, you may have a strong feeling about it. If you do not know, you should ask, they owe it to you. The answer could be enlightening to you.

Regardless of the reason, if you do not like what you are currently doing, and management is not willing to transfer you, then you are entitled to seek another opportunity. Where, how and when, this is a different question. It depends on a lot of factors, including your character, communication skills and the perception your interviewers will have after meeting you. We cannot tell from just reading your message.  Regardless, employed professionals find other jobs everyday.

As to how you can upgrade your accounting & finance skills, there are a number of channels to pursue. You could seek a professional certification (such as CMA, CFA etc…) or set a less demanding target, such as enrolling in advanced financial courses through the American University in Cairo’s CACE (Center for Adult & Continuous Education). In addition to course, you are strongly advise to always keep up to date in that field, for instance did you read and assimilate Egypt’s tax laws (income tax, sales tax etc..) ? a good finance professional should be familiar with them. Similarly, it would be useful for you to familiarize yourself with the Egyptian Accounting Standards, if you have not done so already.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q2: I am searching for a scholarship, can you help ?

I'm student in the first year of Suez Canal University’s Faculty of Pharmacy, Egypt, I'm searching for free scholarships in my field. I want to help my community by having a better education.

I like studying as well as my field, I hope for better learning, but I do not know how to begin or even where. Additionally my financial situation can't let me complete my dream in a paid scholarship.

M. K. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. K.

=Your ambitions and interests are to be praised and encouraged. Let us start from the end, when we use the term scholarship it is to describe a grant to pay for a student’s tuition fees in an educational institution. Sometimes there are full scholarships (that even cover travel, housing and other expenses as well), others would be partial scholarships contributing to part of the tuition fees (ie. Study cost).

Most scholarships address post graduate studies, others that are less frequent address undergraduate studies. We are assuming your message was addressing studying abroad (US, Canada, Europe etc…). There are a number of scholarships available every year for Egyptians, some of them are advertised in daily newspapers, others are not. Skill-link.com, however announces them all on its web site (Interest Zone), over the last 12 month we have published information about a number of them for both post graduate and under graduate, we do not know how often you visit our web site. Click here for information on a scholarship program we have presented a few months ago for undergraduate studies in the US. 

The scholarships are usually provided by Egyptian entities (such as the Sawiris Foundation), Arab or international foundations (eg. The BP Cambridge Scholarships we announced a few month ago, Ford Foundation and other).

You can also visit the web site of various faculties of pharmacy around the world, and check if they offer any scholarships that could be applicable to you.

If we are to summarize before concluding our reply, we would say, finish your undergraduate studies in Egypt first, making sure you get high grades (otherwise you stand no chance to get a scholarship), work on constantly improving your English… to reach a good score in the TOEFL exam, then when you graduate seek a post graduate studies scholarship. 

We hope the above was of some help to you.

Good Luck

Q3: I am seeking a marketing job in Gaza, what to do ?

First of all my major is marketing and minor business administration, and I want to apply to a multinational company located in Gaza (Palestine). However , I don't know if there are any vacancies available

Could you please provide me with a list of marketing companies that I should submit my resume to ?

A. A. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. A.

This is a very difficult request, we do not deal with any companies in Gaza, have no access to information there (for obvious reasons) and are not sure if there are multinationals there to start with. We suggest you use a search engine (such as Yahoo.com or Google.com) to perform your own search you may get lucky.

In the last paragraph of your message, you mentioned a ‘marketing’ company. Did you really mean that, or do you want a company with marketing vacancies ? A marketing company would be one that performs market research and marketing consulting, a there are only three multinational ones we know of, these have offices in Cairo (AC Nielsen, Synovate and TNS).

We are sorry not being able to offer more help.

Good Luck

Q4: Desperate to find what I want, can you help ?

I read most of your replies and I think you are doing a great job...etc, I am sure you receive that a lot.

Anyway I would like to warn you in advance that reading this email would be a total waste of your time, I am sure you have better things to do, thought I would tell you.\

I am currently a 3rd year student at a faculty of commerce, English Section, I get average grades, probably because I do most of my studying a few days, if not hours, before the exam, I am planning to select “accounting” as my major.

Before I joined the faculty of commerce I spent a year at the faculty of science (Biology Section), I failed in hmmm…. 6 subjects out of 10 simply because I did not study, but I passed the subjects that interested me (studied few hours before the exam).

I wanted to join the faculty of medicine, but my high school (thanaweya amma) grades were not high enough, I am sure you know that story, so I joined the closest faculty to medicine, that was, in my opinion, the faculty of science. I have this mmm… unrealistic dream that I could study medicine after I graduate, I have no idea how I planned on taking computer courses and so, and I also had the chance to study for the C.A, actually I don’t know how I should know what I am really good at? how do I know what is right for me?

If I told my father I am still not sure I am going the right way careerwise he's going to freak out, so I have no one to advise me really and the thing is if I cant help myself, how can anyone help me? so I have no idea why I am sending you this email , but I guess it'd be worth it.

Pseudoname S (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Mr. Or Ms. S (why not let us know your name and gender ?)

First of all thank you for your nice words about “Your Career Advisor”, we sometimes receive such compliments… but who would hate more ?

Your message is not too long, you should see the really long ones we receive. And by the way, you have an interesting writing style.

As to your problem or concerns, well… you are not alone, many other young men and women face this dilemma. We cannot guess why you are so fond of the ‘medical’ field, we know of lots of people who after spending years of studies there ended up hating it or working in a total different area. Others of course, would not think of any other profession they could be more attached to. It is really a personal preference.

We can tell, you are not fond of studying, this is not a trait for a medical student, probably the line of study that is the most demanding on that front.

Now let us leave history behind, you are a Commerce Student with one year left to go. Luckily you are in the faculty with the most diversified prospects on earth. You can work in sales, customer service, IT, media, event management, logistics, administration, accounting, banking, capital market, advertising, health care administration, education etc… no one will question why a Commerce graduate is getting into any of those fields. So, the good news, you have plenty of choices wide open to you. Additionally, you’ve got a little over a year and a half to decide what you want to pursue. It is not possible that you will hate all those fields. You may try working in a particular area, and if you find it does not suit you then you can change. It is easier to try things and take risks when you are young and single.

Your father is supposedly there for you. He should not freak out, unless you have in mind to drop the studies you almost completed to get into a totally different field (such as law). As long as you do not have a strong preference, then you might as well complete your track in Commerce. As we said, it will leave you with lots of options. Meanwhile, please please try and exert some effort to improve your grades. This will never hurt. Also, work on your PC and language skills (English or other), these will always be a plus to you.

We hope the above was of some help to you.

Good Luck

Q5: What should an executive secretary do to define her goals ?

I need you help, I want to develop my career. How can an executive secretary define her goals in a right way.

For my self I need to make a lot of things, but what are the best and effective things.

S. L. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. L.

Your message is so brief, and your question is so general, that we find it difficult to reply objectively to you. An executive secretary, assuming the person in question is interested in that field and would like to progress, has to acquire a number of skills and character traits. The key skills would be: managing a number of tasks in parallel, follow up abilities, good business writing in more than one language, organizing and filing, PC mastery etc... With regards to character, the person must be mature, able to work with little supervision, organized, efficient, friendly and getting along well with others, sometimes patient and able to think ahead.

These in our opinion are the skills and character aspects of a good executive secretary. Advancement opportunities would be to become an executive secretary of a more senior person (eg the Chairman) or moving to a more important company (eg. a large multinational company or international organization). Some other good executive secretaries would add an increasing amount of administrative responsibilities, others would move to assume other position such as HR, administration or become managers of business associations or other.

Since your question was very general, we attempted to pin point the areas where one should aim to develop. This may be of some help to you, otherwise, please come back with a more detailed message, describing yourself, your job, what you like and what you aim at.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q6: What is the best option for me in my final year of college ?

I will – God willing - graduate this year from the faculty of commerce (English section) and I have decided to choose the final year’s specialization in business administration rather than accounting and I am thinking of more specialization in marketing.

So please could you tell me how I can improve my self in this field to be welcomed in its job opportunities and what is the probability that I can find one ? and is it usually associated with a good salary ?

Alternatively I have a modified thought of studying CMA. So please what is better ? and what are the answers for my questions.

H. A. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear A.

To start with, the only difference between choosing your final year’s specialization in the Faculty of Commerce would be that if you do not major in “Accounting” you would usually not be able to work for an accounting firm or a very accounting oriented job. Otherwise they are the same. Numerous graduates with a specialization in accounting end up in jobs related to management, marketing or sales anyway. So, if someone wants to keep his / her bets (chances) open as much as possible, he/she might as well major in accounting. That final year as we said will not deprive you from non accounting jobs.

Since you seem to already have made your decision, then the best you can do is try and complete your year with as high grades as you can. It never hurts. Even though grades are only one of many criteria to recruit, one might as well enhance his chances.

To improve in any field (marketing included) one must constantly read about it, with the internet, hundreds of free resources (magazines, professional news portals, research papers etc..) are available. These are as important as what you will study in your Academic books. Constant reading in English should also enrich your language and keep you aware of the latest trends and events in your selected field around the world. Once you graduate you may want to strengthen your knowledge in the field of marketing by enrolling in some marketing courses, or even going for the Chartered Institute of Marketing certification. You can also check the courses offered by the International Marketing Institute in Egypt, they are located in Giza, 32 H Radwan Ibn El Tabib Street (tel: 573-0855 ; 573-0208 ; 573-0602 ; 573-0663). Similarly, you can check Logic Consulting’s training activities, they are offering more than 12 different marketing courses and programs in 2005, they are located in 5, Shohadaa El Mohandesin St., Mohandesin, Giza (tel: 3451430 ; 8 lines ). You also have the American University in Cairo and the American Chamber of Commerce regularly offering some relevant courses.

Now are marketing jobs associated with a good salary ? that is a very general question one cannot answer like that, in all job categories there are those providing an excellent pay, others a good pay, a third group a little pay…. It depends on the organization, the exact role, the caliber of the professional etc… also, ‘good pay’ differs from one person to the other… there is not standard. For instance, an LE 1,000 monthly salary for an entry level position in marketing would be considered ‘excellent’ by some graduates, ‘OK’ by others and ‘unacceptable’ by a third group. As you see, your question cannot be answered. What we can say, hardworking, professional, dedicated and eager to learn young professionals working in well established companies should expect to be paid in the top bracket of their peer group.

To conclude, you ended your message to “Your Career Advisor” by also inquiring about the CMA (Certified Management Accountant), this is a totally different field. Are you interested it marketing or accounting. Find out what you want first, but anyway a CMA will not hurt, it is advisable you only start it after having worked for at least a year. This way you will know if you are interested in accounting, and would benefit more from it, since you would be able then to relate what you are studying to real life situations.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q7: How can I get into a ‘Big 4’ audit firm ?

I'm a college student in the Faculty of Commerce at Suez Canal University (Accounting major) and this is my final college year; so I became very obsessed about the future. I'm considering joining an audit firm or more accurately a big 4 firm but I don't know what I should do to join them as a fresh graduate, are there any special requirements they request in the candidates they hire ?

Also I heard that they -The big 4 firms- only hire the English section graduates, so is it true or what ?

Thanks a lot for your patience.

K.E (Port Said)

Replying:

Dear Mr. E.

Well, definitely it is time to be obsessed with the future, soon you will be entering the job market and making the first steps of your professional career journey, which we hope will be an interesting, successful and rewarding one for you. Now that you have an initial idea in mind as to where you want to work, it allows you to focus; which is a good sign.

Starting one’s career in an audit firm, is not a bad idea. It provides good training and exposure to new graduates in the fields of business, accounting, audit and taxation. It also exposes them to a variety of environments and develops there analytical skills. It also provides them with a disciplined understanding of accounting standards, financial disclosure requirements and audit techniques. Such knowledge is valuable whether the person decides to continue for the rest of his life as an external auditor or switch – as most people do – after a few years to work in corporate entities in the areas of finance, accounting or internal audit. For the benefit of our other readers, the “Big Four” are the largest accounting firms in the world, these are Ernst Young, KPMG, Deloitte Touch and PriceWaterHouseCoopers. They have all been operating in Egypt for many years. Up till the late 1980s, there were the ‘Big 8’, but over the years they merged with each other becoming the ‘Big 6’ then the ‘Big 5’ and as of 2002 we now have the ‘Big 4’ who between them are handling the largest companies and organizations around the world (and in Egypt).

These firms all recruit fresh graduates and through training programs, and assigning them to work in teams under the supervision of more experienced professionals, they succeed in developing those fresh graduates and turning those who are promising into ‘seniors’ then ‘manager’ and ultimately a few become ‘partners’ in the firms.

We do not believe they only recruit those that are ‘English Section’ graduates from the Egyptian faculties of commerce. While they seek reasonable English proficiency, they are open. So, if you can ensure your English is good, your grades are attractive (Good or higher) and you have the right character (maturity, confidence, structure thinking…) and communication skills, you stand a good chance like other peers. Supplement your studies by reading more in tax, accounting and financial reporting matters (and the relevant laws), that will make you better prepared for the interviews.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q8: Time is running, must I love what I do, or do what I love ?

How can I know exactly know what I want for my career ?

It is not an easy question specially when you find that your educational history does not match your dreams or your talent. I like working with my hands and machines and computers and can do some paper work too but not too much, but I have an accounting background. I know that one does not have to follow what he/she has learned, ok, but what do I have to do now once I discovered this fact?.

Do I have to learn from the beginning, engineering for example?. ( Can you see it is not a practical solution ).

Do I have to search in the accounting career for something I like in it ?.

Do I have to ‘love what I am doing’ or ‘do what I love’ ?

P.S. I am 28 years old !!

S. O. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Mr. O.

One can write a book to try and address your issues. They are part philosophical, part pragmatic. Let us try.

To start with, being 28 is not the end… it is a young age, and you still have 35 years or more of a professional or working life you have to make the best out of it. Additionally, you are not stuck with a very specialized degree that is only useful in limited employment fields. It is not like you spend 7 long years in studying medicine or studied ‘Hebrew’ in a faculty of ‘Arts’, on the contrary, you are a commerce graduate (regardless of the major) and you have dozens of fields open to you, except for those requiring a particular education (eg. engineering, law, pharmacy etc..). For instance you can work in the agriculture business without an agriculture degree, you can fix computers without an IT degree… and so on. So, where is the problem ? The key issue (or problem) for you would be to identify what you like doing. There is nothing better than being interested and excited about one’s field of work (or loving it as you put it), this is what makes you get out of bed each morning and motivated for the whole day. Obviously, one should try to love what he is doing, but if not, then change is a must. It is not like a marriage, where one discovers he does not love or even like his spouse, but they have children and he/she has to go on for the sake of these innocent children. No, here the case is different, you owe it to yourself, and actually to your employer (since you would not be giving your best performance) to get into something you are interested in.

How to find what you are interested in ? from the brief description you provided, it seems a regular desk job does not suit you. You want something more active and where you use you hands. It is a start, you have a direction to look into. Do you like selling ? training ? solving other people’s problems (technical support) ? how about software development ? or web site design ? look at the people and jobs around you and try and narrow the list. OK, you will not be a lawyer or build houses, but there are numerous other fields, what do you find close to your hart ? Once you have a short list, then we can investigate what skills / training are required to get you in them.

Did we manage to address the issue ? hopefully we were of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q9: I am still unemployed, what are the skills I really need ?

First, I would like to thank you a lot for your effort and especially for the Career Advisor section, it’s very beneficial...

Second, I want to know how often does the “Your Career Advisor” section get updated.. It has been idle now for a whole month or maybe more. Anyways, I'm a 21 year old male, graduated from Cairo University’s Faculty of Commerce (Arabic section). A few weeks ago, I succeeded in Part(1) of the CMA/CFM exam with (score:550).

Actually, I'm lost. I don't know what to do now.. I'm feeling that my CMA studying is just an academic study, no practical benefit as I'm currently unemployed.. What should I do? Should I continue with my certification while searching for a suitable job? Should this job be in a related field or just accept the first job available? What other skills do I need to develop to make the job search process easier? Also what are the generic skill related studies? How & where can I learn effective communication & communication skills? What are EXACTLY the communication skills required? And finally what are the IT skills required for an accountant ? I have professional hardware & software installation capabilities but they seem useless in such a field (accounting field).

Sorry for my many question but I'm lost

N. I. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Mr. I.

Thank you for your praise of “Your Career Advisor” and congratulations on passing the first part of your “CMA” exam.

With regards to how often we update the content of skill-link.com’s online magazine “Interest Zone” which includes among others “Your Career Advsior”, we are happy that someone from our tens of thousands of monthly visitors finally asked the question. For almost four years, we updated our content on a weekly basis, every Thursday night. What we noticed from monitoring the traffic to our site (visits, what pages are being visited and for how long etc…) was that despite the growing number of our registered users (now 75,000+) and conducting job interviews and employment matches for thousands of candidates since 2000, the number of readers / visits did not grow accordingly. We also noted that most visitors to our website were only interested in the vacancies, only a small fraction bothered to read the various articles about topics such as interview tips, job hunting techniques, employment news, scholarships for Egyptians, salary surveys etc… and this includes “Your Career Advisor”. Such an attitude demoralized us after all the investment and attention to the content. In May 2004, we relocated our offices to bigger and better premises, during the move, we had to miss to weekly updates… and to our surprise, not a single message inquired about why the new content did not appear, as surprising, the number of visits continued as is. So we were disappointed and frustrated, while 2004 was the best in terms of placements and finding job opportunities for our candidates inside and outside Egypt, our visitors attitude drove us to decide to give a lower priority to content. A normal human reaction. Even “Your Career Advisor”, it has responded to hundred of messages on its website section, some were even personalized emails, out of these hundreds, how many do you think wrote back just saying ‘thank you’ in an email that would take 30 seconds to be written ? less than 10 in 4 full years !

Now back to your question. What you did not explicitly state, but we are assuming is that ‘you are interested in working in the field of accounting’, in other words, it is not a job ‘wel salam’ that you have to work in because you are an accounting graduate.

Having said that, it is not a lack of qualifications / training you have as a fresh graduate. Fresh graduates find jobs all the time without CMAs, Masters degrees etc… What they need is a positive attitude, good language proficiency (English mainly), PC skills, portraying a professional image and character and some luck. You did not tell us where you are applying for jobs or how ? Are your CVs and cover letters following the standards and guidelines we often present in “Your Career Advisor” and that a permanently displayed in our “Career Development Section” ? Do you reach the interview stage and then do not get an offer… or do you not even reach that stage ? all this is important information to know.

Regardless, your key priority know is to get employed and find a job. The longer you stay out of work, the more difficult your situation becomes. More courses / training will not hurt, but this is not a priority right now. In parallel to your search improve your English or Business English (your message is well written) and ensure you have the required PC skills (Excel, Word, Powerpoint etc.). In your selected line of work (accounting & finance) hardware and software installation capabilities are nice to have but not important. More valuable would be to be exposed to automated financial and accounting packages (Oracle Financials, Baan, JD Edwards, SAP etc..).

To conclude, what potential employers are seeking from a fresh graduate is to ‘believe’ he/she fits their environment, has good potential and portrays a positive attitude, the rest are trivial details.

Specific skills differ from one job category to the other, someone in credit (in a bank) or research (in a brokerage company) would definitely need elaborate writing and presentation skills, an accountant (cost accountant, tax specialist, general accountant etc..) does not need such skills, but rather accuracy, attention to details and familiarity with tax laws and accounting standards, and so on….

Finally, do not under estimate general knowledge and staying constantly aware with what is happening around you, for instance do you read the daily newspapers ? in addition to weekly magazines and publications ? do you know what is happening with regards to taxes, the stock market the QIZ and other ? Such information would gradually turn you into a more mature and knowledgeable young professional.

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

Q10: How can I work for an Embassy in Cairo ?

I am very happy to consult with you for advice. I graduated from a Faculty of Education, department of English in 2001 and did post graduate studies for two years to obtain another bachelor degree in English from a Faculty of Arts. My computer skills are excellent and I obtained a certificate from Microsoft. Additionally, I am enrolled in French courses at the present time to widen my options.

I was working as an executive secretary in an import and export company and my first question is: in spite of all these facts in addition to my communication skills and my searching and all the interviews I had, what is wrong about me ? or what might be harmful to my case and why wasn't I accepted at any place till now?

My second question is how can I find a job in a foreign embassy in Cairo as a clerk or secretary? I had an interview in a foreign embassy recently as they where requiring a secretary but generally, what is the recruitment way in such places as they rarely publish advertisements in newspapers requiring employees.

N. A. (Cairo) 

Replying:

Dear Ms. A.

You look qualified as a recent graduate. What you did not explain in your message is what happened with your job as executive secretary in the export & import jobs you mentioned ? As you know certificates and degrees are not the only criteria to hire someone. There are character issues, attitude, professionalism, proficiency in language (many Faculty of Arts graduates, even majoring in English are unfortunately not that proficient in the language they specialized in). These are some issues we cannot tell if you score high in or not, from just reading your message.

Since companies and organizations are hiring… and actually we witness a more active hiring market in Egypt since September 2004 , compared to the 3 previous years … opportunities are there. The issue is how do you present yourself, what is it you are lacking ? once we / you find that out, you can refocus your search or work on developing the areas that are negatively impacting you. Do you handle yourself well in interviews ? do you maintain eye contact and are not too shy ? Do you do your homework about the company that is interviewing you before the interview to be able to have an interesting two way discussion and look / act informed ? or do you just sit passively and only answer the questions you are asked ? Do you follow up with your interviewer(s) after the interview with a thank you letter ? If you are rejected to you call your interviewer(s) and try and seek their advice – even on a personal basis – to find out what the reason was and how you could do better in future opportunities ? No one can answer such questions but yourself.

As to foreign embassies in Cairo, they periodically recruit. Being government organizations, they do not go to recruitment service providers such as skill-link.com. They would advertise in newspapers. Over the last few months, we saw a number of embassies advertising vacancies they have, so did some international organizations (such as USAID, UNDP, the European Union etc…). Do you read newspapers on a daily basis ? Also, why wait until a vacancy is advertised, why not send a nicely written cover letter and CV to all the embassies you are interested in ? it will not hurt, on the contrary, one (or more) may be interested and save the expense and hassle of advertising a relevant vacancy.

In general embassies, same as multinational companies and foreign firms, seek candidates or have very good (or outstanding language abilities – both oral and written), in addition to mastering the popular PC applications (Word, Excel, Power Point etc…). They also want them to be professional, and look very presentable. That is it !

We hope the above was of some use to you.

Good Luck

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