“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• Should I remain where I am or go for an IT job elsewhere?
• What  salary should I expect as an expatriate teacher in Egypt?
• How  to get into a more interesting marketing role?
• Follow Up on: They want to play a very dirty game with me !

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 remain where I am or go for an IT job elsewhere?

I am a 26 year old electrical engineer (automatic control), currently working in a large military industrial company. I have been working there for about 3 years as a maintenance engineer. I also attended several training courses abroad. The problem is I can not find myself in this job, there is nothing new I can do or learn in my current position.

During my university studies in electric engineering there were some courses which include programming which I found very interesting; I think in the field of IT there is something new every day. This encourage me to enroll in a 6 months IT (ORACLE) course through a scholarship offered by the Ministry of Communication & Information Technology; now I am an Oracle developer. During the course I remained employed, but worked the night shift.

Now, what should I do ? If I could find a job in the field of IT should I leave the factory? My current salary is LE 900 per month. At 26, I have no practical IT experience, do you think I can find a job here or in Europe or Canada ?

What is your advice ?

M. H. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Mr. H.

You did well by remaining employed during your six months ORACLE course. Of course you were lucky to have the chance of working the night shift.

Since you do not have hands on experience in IT application development or for that matter IT in general, we do not see you should consider exploring job opportunities in Europe or North America. Finding an IT position there is difficult, let alone that you will be competing with applicants that have significantly more experience and expertise.

As for Egypt, 26 is not an old age J some engineers start their careers in their mid twenties after completing the mandatory military service (specially if they were reserve officers). We suggest you look for Oracle related jobs while remaining with your current employers, any offers you will get should not be for a lower salary. Meanwhile, with your newly acquired skills, you may consider getting transferred to the IT Department at your current company or maybe a sister company.

We hope the above was of some use to you.
Good Luck

Q2: What salary should I expect as an expatriate teacher in Egypt?

I am a Canadian of Egyptian parents and have found a job posting in Cairo for the position of an English language teacher at a language school. In the application, they ask that you state the salary that you expect to receive. These are the benefits that they offer:

· Furnished Paid Accommodation,
· Paid Transportation to and from the School,
· Paid Visa & Work Permit,
· Paid Vacation and Paid Public Holidays,
· Roundtrip Airfare Ticket.

What salary should I be asking for (in light of the above benefits), without neither being presumptuous nor underselling myself ?

B. A. (Egypt)

Replying:

Dear Ms. A.

You provided us with no information about your experience, the school you are considering to work in or even what level you will be teaching (7 year olds or 16 year olds :)... you may appreciate these are all factors that contribute to determining a teacher's compensation.

Lacking information on all of the above, we would estimate what you should be asking for in the range of USD 1,500 to USD 2,000 per month.

Good Luck.

Q3: How to get into a more interesting marketing role?

I graduate in 1988 from Cairo University's Faculty of Commerce, and I am currently embarking on an MBA in marketing. For the last two years I have been working for a leading multinational bank in Egypt in the area of retail banking. I have been mainly involved in planning, market segmentation, product development etc…. However, I feel that in my present situation I can't use to the full extent my logic and skills. I need to be in a more business-oriented role, not only follow checklists. I am interested in the field of marketing (products or services). Can you advise me on that front?

M. M. (Cairo).

Replying:

Dear Mr. M.

One of the fastest growing areas today in banking is retail banking (also known as personal or consumer banking). Egypt is relatively under developed on that front, and there is lots of creativity and market education to be done. It is a bit surprising that you being in that area, working for one of the largest global banks, you do not find it exciting. That may have to do with management or the prevailing culture in your department. Also, maybe as you get more experience, you will be delegated more interesting tasks ?! Otherwise you should have been in an interesting place.

One of the newest and rapidly developing aspects of marketing in our part of the world is online / internet marketing, advertising and promotions. Web sites with credible content that attracts thousands of visitors are becoming aware of the potential to cash on this traffic (same as the more traditional media) through ads, promotional emails and sponsorships. This is an area you could explore, and also try an have part of your MBA focus on e business and e marketing.

Other than the above, all products and services require marketing, you could be within the marketing department of a company / bank or in a professional services firm providing marketing research, promotions or advertising services. The second case (that of a service provider) usually requires more intellectual capabilities and harder work since it implies working for a number of demanding clients in a variety of industries.

MBA or not, it is very important for you to read: books, magazines (printed or on the web) to stay updates with out the word is doing in the fields of marketing, promotions, advertising etc… what were the success stories and failures of companies and the lessons learnt.

You may also be aware there are a number of marketing certifications you may pursue. Please refer to a previous reply from "Your Career Advisor" on a related subject by clicking here.

Good Luck.

Q4: Follow Up on: They want to play a very dirty game with me !

You may recall you addressed my message two weeks ago (click here).

Now I want to update you on what happened after that;

I met the Administration Manager of the company, after asking me about my experience and education, he asked me a direct question "Are you ready to work as a trainee without paying you any you anything?" off course not ! I told him when I was a trainee in a petroleum marketing company in Egypt, they used to pay me LE 250 per month. He began to say: "you know one girl tried to join the company as a summer trainee I asked them(!!!!) "how much she will receive?" they told me she should pay to us because she will join a great company like ours (!!!!)."

After that, he told me that they are waiting until their Alexandria branch move to another turn key office and they should wait until that time to use the desks of the old branch in Cairo, because they have a number of vacancies in different departments. The thing that shocked me is he uses an expression to call the GM, he call him "the owner representative", "we are a very good company, although we are not No. 1,we are No. 7 worldwide but you can consider us as a challenger and we are planning to be among the biggest five worldwide" he added.

In a moment of truth with himself, he said the company is owned by a French Lebanese businessman, he is everything in the company (one man show) and the owner rep. in Egypt does the same here ! I asked him if I spend the two months, will I receive any salary for that duration ? , he replied unfortunately no (!!!!!!!!!!).

After this we had a friendly conversation and he gave me his mobile number to check with him if there is something new for me .

Today I called the Sales Manager and told him about the meeting with the Administration Manager and told him that to start with I consider his offer to me as a way to examine my negotiation skills and it is something very strange to me. I have never met or heard about before and you want me to take the risk of working two months for free I think you should have a certain reasoning I did not get. His reply was: "No, it was not the matter of negotiation skills but I wanted the Administration Manager to know you and we don't have an immediate hiring need (!!) but we have only the training which we have told you about, and please I am playing cards now (!!) and will call you next Monday to have time to discuss the subject".

Now, I am very depressed, I am not crying for that lost opportunity, but the unemployment is killing me, I am in need of a job and the only opportunity for me is with a local Egyptian IT company ( I passed the 1st screening stage and the 2nd will be next September) and if I were to succeed then, I would proceed to a third screening stage in October 2002 !

What should I do? every day I loose my respect for myself.

Thanks for your great help, I was really in need for someone to listen to me and advise me.

A. A. (Egypt).

Replying:

Dear Mr. A.

It is a sad event, the way the company handled the matter was unprofessional and reflecting poor judgment on their behalf. However, in a lifetime one meets all sorts of people !

It is unfortunate that the job market is so tight these days in Egypt. The economic situation is affecting every body. Our population boom is also not helping, every year about 900,000 Egyptians enter the job market, out of which a little over 200,000 are university graduates. Having said that, companies are still recruiting, do not loose hopes, at skill-link.com we get daily requests to fill vacancies...

Good Luck.

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

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