“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to:

• Tell me What to do and Where to go? (g)
• So; how about an MBA to change my career? (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: Tell me What to do and Where to go?

Yes, that's exactly my feeling these days. I am a chemical engineer, a graduate of Cairo University (1991). In summary, I worked for four companies in Egypt since my graduation, they are all related to the petroleum sector. This has given me the chance to explore the Oil & Gas business and get a global view of today's oil industry. If you asked me to evaluate my personal skills, I believe it could be simplified as follows:

Interpersonal Skills: Good
Organizational Skills: Good
Communication skills: Above average
Entrepreneurial skills: Above average
Technical Skills: Problem

After this long introduction, I think it is the time to highlight the problem: Before joining my current employer (a multinational petroleum services company), I was suffering from a shortage in my technical skills. The reason is that I haven't got a chance to focus in one job enough time to develop my skills in a specific field and acquire the necessary experience. Now, I work in the Production Planning Department, I decided to focus for at least five years concentrating on acquiring the required experience to master this job. Unfortunately and after two years of moving forward, the multination company I work for has been replaced with an Egyptian "unprofessional' company to operate the refinery (that was two months ago). The mentalities I have to deal with are incredibly unbelievable, and the environment is negative, which means no more skill building and experience development.

Now I have to leave (resign), but the problem is where to go ? I haven't got yet the experience level to move to the same job in another refinery. Meanwhile, it will be an extreme madness to move to a new job (After 12 years from my graduation).

Tell me What to do ? & Where to go ?

M. M. H. (Alexandria)

Replying:

Dear Mr. H.

To start with, we tend to differ with you concerning your views on your "experience". There are many aspects' to a professional's experience, it basically consists of:

• Industry experience (in your case petroleum, where we believe have adequate exposure).
• Functional experience, such as sales, human resources, logistics etc.. (in your case we believe you had good exposure to process engineering and then worked on related activities, whether employed by end users or service providers. Therefore it is within the same broad domain).
• Management experience: which relates to the skills of working in large organizations, dealing with people, writing and conducting presentations, leading others.. regardless of the industry or the function one is in (in your case, you have been exposed to a variety of environments, ranging from the good to the average and the ugly !).
• Technical experience, which related to the tools, processes, particular operations, software, equipment etc…. one deals with. Some times it also covers, part of a life cycle: eg. Studies, design, implementation, maintenance etc… (On this front, we also believe you have some skills to claim).

As per the above, you score reasonably well on a number of experience dimensions; hence we see no reason for the gloomy (dark) picture you are painting. You would worry more if you are seeking employment outside the Petroleum industry or those company that serve it (eg. Software, instrumentation equipment etc…).

Petroleum or Oil & Gas is one of the sectors that are less affected by Egypt's difficult economic situation. There is strong demand for the product (payable in dollars); there are new fields being discovered in various places of Egypt, and prices are up due to the situation in the Gulf region. So, you are not stuck in a sector with fundamental problems like tourism or one affected by over supply and tight liquidity such as real estate or the automotive sector.

It is not clear to us if you are leaving your current employer because of the negative environment or you were asked too. Regardless, what you should be seeking in a position to leverage your experience in the Petroleum sector as a first priority, you would probably be more flexible on the role. The challenge would be also in finding an environment that satisfies you. We would also tend to believe that someone with your background could find good opportunities in the oil producing states in the Arab Gulf (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait etc…)

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

Q2: So; how about an MBA to change my career?

This is the second inquiry I send to "Your Career Advisor"; the first one was last September, it was related to the operations control function, you were really a great help thank you.

As a reminder, I am a 32 years old Faculty of Commerce graduate (Cairo University). I also obtained a Secretarial Certificate from the American University in Cairo. Since graduation I worked as an executive secretary and as an assistant in the Finance Department of a multinational company. However , changes have been made and I work now as a secretary in the industrial dept. of my company, I feel that this way I have reached a dead end, I am considering an MBA.

What I want to know however is all the places in Egypt that offer that training with all their contacts' data, I know you have replied to a similar questions but you only mentioned AUC, Maastricht University and Arab Academy, are these all the places and do you think an online MBA will be a much cheaper option ?

Replying:

Dear Ms. W.

Thank you for your kind words and we are delighted you have been researching our previous answers in our archive section.

You may therefore have already read before, that an MBA is not necessarily the way out of a dead end career or a golden passport to a high flying career. It may be useful, however, other short courses and certifications could be as useful. One first must decide where his/her interest are ? in sales or marketing or HR or …..

Once the above is addressed, one can better focus on identifying the best skill development channels he/she can pursue.

Having said that, let us go back to your original question. Yes in addition to the three MBA programs you are aware of (AUC, Maastricht University and Arab Academy) there are other programs offered in Egypt. For example:

OUDA:
(the Operational unit for Development Assistance - OUDA - established in 1992 jointly by UNDP and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affair)
They administer an MBA program in cooperation with a French business school (Ecole Superieure Libre Des Sciences Commerciales Appliquees)

OUDA could be reached at:
World Trade Center 5th floor
1191 Cornish El Nile, Cairo - EGYPT
Tel : (202)5747797 - 5786705 - 5782736
Fax : (202)5786456
e-mail : ouda@ouda.org.eg

Cairo University:
They have a joint MBA Program with the US Georgia State University. Click here for more information on this program.

RITI (Regional IT Institute)
In addition to the MBA they offer with Maastricht University, they offer a Masters degree in Human Resources Education, in cooperation with the US University of Louisville.

RITI could be reached at:
11 A Hassan Sabry st. Zamalek - Cairo Egypt 11211
Tel : 737-5206/07

German University in Cairo:
You may be aware that this new University will start operating next year, it is planning to offer an MBA courses. We have checked with their management, and they confirmed courses will be in English. Of course we cannot judge the quality of the MBA program since it has not started yet.

However, if you are interested, click here for more information.

Distance education could be a cheaper alternative… however you miss the classroom interaction AND not every one can study on his own. Many people need to close guidance of a teacher / professor, the pressure of deadlines to study a certain chapter or prepare a paper etc…

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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