Recruiting Heats Up in Cairo

In their March article titled The War for Talent, Egypt's Business Today magazine sheds light on how multinational as well as local companies in Egypt are fighting hard to recruit and keep high caliber employees at their companies.

Starting My IT Recruitment Agency: Genie

Since 2001 I have been managing Egypt IT Jobs. Fast forward five and a half years later, I am just about to reach 9000 members subscribing to receive my IT job ads. Over 300 additional new members are subscribing each month. I am now starting my own IT recruitment agency specialized in providing recruitment services for the IT sector in Egypt. I selected Genie to be the name of my IT recruitment agency.

Having worked as HR Manager at the Cairo branch of a Seattle based US software development company has given me a feel of the difficulties software companies are facing in finding and retaining competent software developers and other IT professionals. Now I am happy and excited about launching Genie because it will give me a wide opportunity to assist in pushing the IT industry in Egypt forward by facilitating the search and selection process of software developers in Egypt.

Visit www.genie-jobs.com for more information.

Jobs at Google Egypt

Here is a list of jobs at Google Egypt.

1300 CVs Every Day!

According to CNN Money, Google gets 1300 CVs a day! Google has been selected as the #1 company in the list of 100 Best Companies to Work for 2007 in the US.

Writing IT Job Ads

Now that's what I call a well written IT job ad. This job ad presents a vacancy for a Web Developer at Google's Seattle office.

Well-Informed Employees

One of the big mistakes of management is not to make your employee aware of exactly how he/she will be evaluated, what is expected from him/her, what is his/her duties and responsibilities, and how he/she might get rewarded or punished. Despite the fact that this might sound natural and logical, yet unfortunately many managers and companies fall into this very trap.

Managing the expectations of an employee would make him/her less resentful when he/she is evaluated and rewarded or punished. A workpace where an employee does not know exactly what his responsibilities are might foster friction between employees due to taking decisions instead of others and some not doing their duties and blaming this on others.

The best thing to do is to take each new candidate through a brief orientation in which he/she gets to know the policies and procedures of the company, a clear written statement of his/her job description including clearly stated duties and responsibilities and finally the method by which the employee will be evaluated. Investing in such an orientation would save companies a lot of headaches caused by employee friction, a lot of frustration on the sides of employees due to unmet expectations and a lot of waisted energy on the side of employees who might be waisting a lot of their energy on low priority activities that do not really add to the bottom line of the company.

Branding Workshop at Zedny

I just came back from a session about branding as part of the Zedny marketing workshop. The session was really great, mainly due to the presentation skills a hand-on real-life experience of the presenter. The session was delivered by Basem Abdel Ghani, currently Category Marketing Manager - Dairy at Juhayna Food Industries.

Secretaries No More?

The role of a secretary is changing with time. The more technology evolves and spreads at our workplace, the more our work style changes and the role of the secretary in particular changes.

The role of a secretary was traditionally to do typing of correspondence or typing of reports for the manager on a manual typewriter, to sort out mail coming to the office, to answer and make phone calls and arrange appointments for the manager. Things are changing now, specially at companies that use technology more. At a software company now for instance, a manger has a computer and probably can type by himself. Most communication and correspondence takes place via email, so snail mail is limited. Appointments can also easily be scheduled via software. The only secretarial task remaining might probably be answering and making phone calls. Even this one might have been reduced due to the increased reliance on email which is by definition fast.

When I worked at Sakhr 8 years ago, they did not have any secretaries (although they had hundreds of employees). Well, actually they had a position for secretaries, but they did not call them secretaries, they called them Assistants instead. Perhaps naming is not a big deal, yet I believe that software companies, which are big consumers of technology and are staffed by highly computer literate people, are usually less reliant on secretaries.

Sure we are a long way from not needing secretaries any more. After all, there are so many companies that are run by managers who are not technically savvy. They still need someone to type their messages and will rarely use email, or even my ask their secretaries to type it for them!

Google for Education in Egypt

I am excessively excited about Google's deal with the Egyptian Ministry of Education to provide Egyptian students with Google applications as part of Google's Google Apps for Education program.

Microsoft has long known the treasure hidden in the large population of Egypt and the will of the Egyptian government since 2000 to transform Egypt into the digital economy stage. Now Google is doing the right move. Google will spread into the Arab world through Egypt. After all, Egypt is a big exporter of ideas and has tremendous cultural influence in the region.

Google Selects Egypt!

I have previously mentioned that Google has selected Egypt as the Arab country of choice in the region to open up its presence in thus creating Google Egypt. Some have questioned the validity of this information claiming that it was nothing but a hoax. To those I only point to this job ad at Bayt asking for an Administrative Assistant for the Managing Director of Google Egypt.

Resala and Dr Sherif

I remember Dr Abdel Aziz Hamuda once told us in a lecture at Cairo University that one way to know a good work of art from a bad one is that with a good work of art you can read it over and over again, each time discovering new things and experiencing the emotions once again as if you were reading it for the first time, while in the case of a substandard work you read it only once then it's 'burnt' and will never want to read it again. I remembered this yesterday when I was at Resala, Masr El Gedida branch, listening to Dr Sherif's same introductory session for the third time! Resala is an NGO and Dr Sherif is its CEO.

I told a friend of mine about Resala the day before and he expressed interest in visiting. I told him I was going to Resala the following day, so he wanted to come and see. The following day, which was yesterday, we went together to the Masr El Gedida branch of Resala and by coincidence it was the day, and time, when Dr Sherif was giving his biweekly introductory session about Resala for new volunteers wishing to get introduced to the activities of Resala. The interesting thing is that such a session provided by Dr Sherif is always more or less the same, he mentions the same stories in almost the same sequence and says basically the same things in every session, of course those attending the session are different people every time. But sometimes a person attends this same session more than once, and that was my case yesterday. It was actually my third time to attend this session by Dr Sherif, and the amazing thing was that I felt his words deeply and I was listening with great interest despite that fact that I've heard what he was saying twice before! That is what brought to my mind Dr Hamuda's words about works of art and the simple rule one may use to differentiate between a good and a bad one. Even though this sesson of Dr Sherif cannot be defined as a work of art, yet indeed this literary rule of quality applies to it.

Web Standards Seminar at OpenCraft

Yesterday I attended a seminar at OpenCraft about Web Standards. It was interesting. The point I liked most in the seminar was what Omar, the presenter and an OpenCraft team member, termed as "the zero principle" or the zero rule. He coined this term to indicate the first rule web developers (and designers) should keep in mind when making web applications or web sites. The princi0ple is: when (and where) to use what. I find it a pity that there are still many making with sites with a dreaded "Flash intro". Yes the customer sometimes insists, but in my opinion it is the duty of the developer/designer to educate him on what professional websites of good companies look like.I really loved Omar's approach of showing us a succession of web sites pointing out to us the good, the bad and the ugly. I'll learn from this approach and perhaps try to use it in one of my next training sessions or seminars. 

Google Egypt

Although I do not know him personally, yet, I was excited to know that Sherif Iskander is working as a Business Manager for Google, handling their interests in Egypt. I do hope the day nears when Google opens up a development center in Egypt similar to the one it has in India. That would result in technology transfer, more jobs in the high tech industry for Egyptians inside Egypt and better Google services for the Arabic language and Arab countries. For Google it will mean tapping into a growing pool of creative talent eager to participate in creating all sorts of new and interesting stuff.

Resala Masr El Gedida

I was at Resala Masr El Gedida branch last Friday. Dr Sherif's lecture was amazing.

Scrum Seminar at OpenCraft

Karim Ratib, Co-Founder of OpenCraft contacted me to throw a seminar at OpenCraft's premises in Dokki about Scrum. I got hooked to the idea and was really interested to know that they have gone through a series of seminars attended by IT pros from different companies. Yesterday I delivered the Scrum seminar at OpenCraft and I loved being there. Nothing more refreshing than challenging questions coming from an audience with diverse backgrounds.

Working in Dubai

I came across this interesting and informative post about the reality of working in Dubai. I believe it would be interesting and useful for any Egyptian considering to work in Dubai, UAE or any other Arab gulf country.

ITI Grads

ITI, the Information Technology Institute in Egypt, started long before FCIS (Faculties of Information and Computer Sciences) were established in Egypt. The ITI gained a good reputation that some software companies in Egypt started explicitly mentioning in their job ads they wanted ITI grads. That's quite a testimony of the quality of ITI grads. Though not all ITI grads are excellent, yet many of them are rally good. To get the 9-month IT related training at ITI you do not have to be a graduate of Engineering (except for a specific branch at the ITI) nor FCIS, you can be a graduate of any faculty in Egypt provided you pass the tests and interviews for selection at the ITI.

Establishing the ITI was a strong step by the Egyptian government towards establishing a base of software developers in Egypt. Establishing FCIS faculties was another strong step towards achieving that same goal. The third step was providing condensed IT training to Egyptian university grads through scholarships. This ambitious program aimed at training five thousand Egyptian university graduates on software development and other IT technologies. Although such a program was not a tremendous success, yet it did produce many excellent software developers from among the large numbers that have graduated from it.

Being good in software development depends on your personal liking of programming. It also depends a lot on the level of your English language proficiency. There are many excellent developers who are graduates (or even students) of non-technical faculties, the Faculty of Commerce for instance, and have not even attended any of the training programs I just mentioned. Programming is a talent and depends on ones efforts end experience. Yet, from what I have witnessed, those who have strong academic background in software development usually win over those who do not have it. Exceptions do exist but in my opinion they are exceptions and not the norm.

Recruiting Software Developers in Egypt

Recruit FCI or FCIS graduates (preferably Computer Science department) (7asibat wa ma3lomat). Recruit from Ain Shams, Helwan then Cairo universities. You may also recruit Engineering graduates (Computer Department): Alexandria, Ain Shams then Cairo University. Those are the best to attempt for. Make aptitude and English tests. If you recruit from those places and do those tests you are SAFE. You never have to worry about developing software in Egypt as long as you've used this winning formula. Then do the technical tests and interviews. This can make you bring an excellent team.

You can provide them with short training and give them books to read on the technologies you will be using. Remember, they love to learn and continuously improve their skills. If they feel at any point in time during their work that their skill-set is not going any further, that they are not learning something new or not improving their technical skills or doing the same thing again and again, be sure they'll start looking for work at some other place.

Scrum Seminar at FCI

Last Saturday I delivered a short seminar about Scrum at FCI, Cairo University. Scrum is one of several agile methodologies for managing the development process of software projects. FCI is the Faculty of Computers and Information Sciences. The seminar started at 10:30 AM and took 1.5 hours. What I liked most about the audience, who were mainly third and fourth year students, was that I got intelligent questions from them during the seminar.

I'll try to upload the video of the seminar to Google Videos and link to it from here when I get hold of it.

Orbit Channel Visits

A team from the Orbit channel visited me today for an interview. That was an exciting thing! They asked me about what a blog is and about the blogging scene in Egypt. I then made a quick demo for them to show how I write in this HR Egypt blog of mine and publish what I write instantly. I'm looking forward to seeing the program on Orbit.