“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• How should I handle this particular interview? (b)

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: How should I handle this particular interview?

I graduated last year from Helwan University, Faculty of Commerce. I recently applied for two job vacancies at the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo; one for "Receptionist" and the other as "Sales Representative" for the Business Information Center.

They called me today for an interview concerning the "Receptionist" position; my real intention is to work there in any field at any position trying to make good relations to get another position in another field which is computer field...I took some computer courses such as (CLP certified, HTML, Java script, Network, Internet )..And I will keep studying in this field when I get any kind of job.

What I want to ask about is, if they asked me, why you want to work as a receptionist in spite of taking these computer courses, why don't you work in the computer field!! And do you want this job as temporary work and when you find another job you'll leave us or you would like to continue with us? What should I say?

And what is the average salary in this position, or the minimum should I accept?

And finally, I would be grateful if you could provide me with some information about the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo.

D. R. (Cairo)

Replying:

Dear Ms. R.

Actually, the "Receptionist" job may be a better start of your career then the "Sales Representative" one... this is because you will learn more about the organization in the first one and the other one may be really challenging in those difficult economic times... unless of course you really like sales and would be bored to death as a receptionist of secretary.

Now, the IT courses you attended are not very specialized (it is not like you were Oracle Certified or CISCO certified) so you could say they offered you a good understanding of information technology and the internet in general, which is useful to any young person starting his/her career. Also, they would allow you to develop simple applications to make you more efficient in any job you get... or for your own free time at home.

As to working in the IT/Computer field, you are a Commerce graduate, not a Computer Science graduate, and as our education system did not provide you with the basic exposure to IT and the internet, the above courses proved useful. If you were a university student in the US or Europe, most of these IT courses would have been part of your regular commerce or business studies. So basically, you took the initiative to become are more qualified young professional.

If you are asked the question you mentioned, you could say that you have worked before as a secretary and found it enjoyable... however the place / environment were not very sophisticated and hence you did not feel like returning there.

Starting as a receptionist in the AMCHAM (as they call themselves) would in your opinion provide you with the following benefit:

• A well structured and sophisticated environment, were you know people are professional and hard workers. This is where you would enjoy working and excelling.
• As a receptionist, you will gradually learn more about the place, its activities and operations. And since the AMCHAM is the most active business association in Egypt, this is definitely useful and rewarding to you.
• Starting with the AMCHAM as a receptionist, does not mean you will remain as a receptionist with them for the rest of your life, as you learn, mature and prove yourself, you believe numerous opportunities with the AMCHAM will be available for you: in marketing, in training, in the information center and operations etc... You are particularly interested to work and give the best you have to a place that has the potential for career advancement.

These are all very valid points and must be said in a convincing way.

The salary: this is not a very important issue, since getting there is the key thing... the AMCHAM has its own pay structure... we believe for someone like you it would usually be between LE 700 and LE 1,000 (gross).

As to the AMCHAM itself, which was founded 20 years ago, it aims at developing and promoting trade and investments between Egypt and the United States of America. Its organization includes a number of specialized committees, each addressing a certain sector or function (eg. Banking Committee, Human Resources Committee, Legal Committee, Marketing Committee etc...).

We suggest you spend some time visiting the various sections of their web site... it could be found at: http://www.amcham.org.eg/ 

The current President of the AMCHAM is Mr. Mohamed Mansour, the Chairman of Mansour Group (that includes Mantrac, Metro Super Markets, Mansour Cheverolet, McDonalds Egypt etc..).

They also issue an interesting English language monthly magazine "Business Monthly" that is not sold at newsstands, but rather distributed to its members and to other interested individuals for free.

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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