Your 101 Guide to Get Hired in the Dynamic Egyptian Market
By Alia Abdou
In the past decades, the hiring process in Egypt was based on minimal factors like your university degree, your connections, and your location. Today, the hiring process got way more complex and dynamic, people actually study human resources and the importance of it in business development. It might have become more difficult to get hired but more fair, rational and challenging. Back in the day, Egypt wouldn’t be using social media to check candidates. These days, various companies are using tools very similar to https://www.clearstar.net to check applicants before they are invited for an interview. Therefore, here’s your 101 guide to get hired easily in Egypt.
Your Resume
Your resume or your CV is the most important tool that you need to introduce yourself to a certain company or a certain position. Make sure you add every course, training, internship or volunteer work you did on your CV. Adding all the work experiences shows your level of expertise and your relevance to the job vacancy. Make sure you put your experiences from the most recent to the oldest. Make sure to write your job title in bold and the company name in bold or italic font. It’s very necessary to write down your career objective. It’s always better to have a detailed, yet brief resume. Make sure that your CV is not more than two pages. Also, try to avoid any spelling or grammatical mistakes in your resume.
Cover Letter
Some companies don’t require you to submit a cover letter. But, it’s always better to add a cover letter before applying for any job. In your cover letter try to mention more things about your educational background and the things you have learned. A cover letter shows more about your personality and how you see yourself, which is very significant in the hiring process. A cover letter ensures the validity of your CV and it gives you the chance to state more of your interests and perspective.
Portfolio
In positions that require certain talents and skills like graphic designing, fashion designing, interior design, architecture, filmmaking, or even software programming. You have many websites and tools to post your work on them. Thus, you should add the links in your resume.
Career path
After you carefully write your resume you should decide what career path do you want to take or what are your areas of interest? You should know what are the jobs that you would like to work at. You should decide either you want to be a banker, an engineer, a dentist or a marketer. And, based on your work preference you should start applying.
Publishing your CV
After making sure that you have a perfect resume you should think about your strategy in publishing your CV. Your CV should be everywhere, start building profiles on all the available applicant tracking systems and all the accessible job platforms including LinkedIn, Wuzzuf, Jobzella, Bayt, your university career website, Hirehunt…etc. In addition, if you are aiming to work in a certain company it’s very important to check out their careers section on their official website. And, before applying or submitting your CV for any job you should accurately read the job description and really make sure that this is a job that you would like to have.
The interview
Phone interview
After you have been doing all the previous steps correctly expect that many companies will call you to set up an appointment for an interview. Nowadays, usually, the recruiters do phone screening interviews before inviting you for a face to face interview. Therefore, you should always be ready that someone will call you and phone interview you. In a phone interview, your tone of voice is so effective you should have a happy voice try to physically smile because it really differs in your voice while the phone screening interview. If you are applying for positions for example that requires fluent English language make sure your English is really fluent. In other words, if you have moderate or intermediate English skills simply don’t apply. Or before applying to any jobs, you may want to take a look into AJ’s website, as doing so could give you the answer to learning how to speak english fluently. Don’t let something like this put you off. You will get there eventually. For that reason, it’s very important to read the job description to really know if you are fit or not.
Face to Face interview
After you get invited to a face to face interview you should prepare yourself for it. If they told you there will be a technical test or an IQ test you should prepare yourself and study at least two days before the interview. It’s essential to be there on time or 10 to 15 minutes earlier.
It’s always better to show the interviewer that you are interested in the company and in what they do. Try to always keep a positive attitude for example, if they told you that the company is facing a transition period show them that you believe it’s a good opportunity and it will definitely affect positively the business development. You should always keep an eye contact with your interviewer. Don’t look on your watch or at the door. You should be very careful when it comes to your body language and your face reactions to what they say.
Sometimes some interviewers will intend to make you angry or will intend to intimidate you in a way or another, so be cool and confident as much as you can. Talk about your achievements and your future plans in your career path. If you have hobbies like reading, writing, surfing, or sports, try to mention them, it shows a good sign that you are an ambitious person, who doesn’t only care about getting paid at the end of the month.
Sometimes you will have a panel interview as in more than one person will be interviewing you. In that kind of interviews, make sure when you talk to talk to everyone sitting, don’t just look to only one person. And, when someone directs a question to you start by looking to them and then start talking to the group as a whole.
Make sure you are dressing up neatly and decently. Avoid any negative feedbacks during the interview, because as I mentioned before it could be part of the interview process, and try to always reply in a positive manner. Some companies like to have different stages and they will invite for more than one interview, don’t be anxious that’s very normal and don’t take it personally. And, if you really want to be accepted attend all of the interviews and be on time.
