Postcard from Riyadh – Bridging the Perception Gap

“Many of our school leavers enter the job market feeling that they have nothing to offer employers. They write CVS which reflect this lack of confidence – name, school, grades and contact details – that’s it!” These are the words of a Saudi friend of mine who should know. He runs a recruitment company in Riyadh, and he receives regular job applications from school leavers who he believes lack the basic skills to project themselves in the job market.

Note my words: they lack the skills to project themselves. This doesn’t mean that they lack basic skills that would make them useful and productive employees. My friend, Mutassim Al-Khatani, who is the CEO of 1^st Talent (www.1stalent.com ), tells a story to illustrate what he’s talking about.

“I had a school leaver send me his CV recently. As is often the case, the CV was a statement of basic fact, not potential. I had a long chat with him on the phone, and tried to get him to talk about things that he has done in his life that he was proud of. After a bit of probing, he told me that recently he had singlehandedly organized a family get-together of a hundred relatives. So what did he have to do to achieve this? Organize the venue, select the caterer, book the entertainment, contact many of his relatives and get them all to agree to the date he proposed.”

“So what skills could he talk about in his CV? How about project management, negotiation and communications? So he started to realize that he did in fact have something to offer the job market. His new CV was a lot more interesting and informative, and I’m confident that his job prospects are much improved”

In the blogs I write about the Middle East, I try to highlight as many similarities with other regions as differences. Saudi Arabia is far from alone in having thousands of school leavers struggling to find a job because for a variety of reasons they don’t feel they have anything to offer to the job market. Feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy among unemployed young people in the UK and the USA lead to a myriad of social problems such as gang membership, drug addiction and psychological disorders.

In Saudi Arabia, the strong family-oriented culture mitigates some of the worst effects of youth unemployment, but it remains an issue at the top of the agenda for the Kingdom’s leadership and media. In a recent keynote address, King Abdullah reiterated the Kingdom’s commitment to education – he quoted the current year’s budget of US$ 37 billion. In a recent article in the English language Arab News, Ali Saad Al Moosa called attention to frequent promises by industry sectors to create new jobs for Saudi nationals which have not been fully delivered upon (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article27647.ece).

So in a competitive job market, young Saudis need as much help as they can get. They would do well to listen to Mutassir Al Khatani’s advice, accentuate the positive in their life experience, and make sure that they have good stories to tell to future employers in their CVs.