New initiative to help Saudi grads obtain jobs

The Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) intends to launch a new initiative called Jahiz (Arabic for ready).
The initiative is aimed in the first phase at Saudi men and women who graduated from foreign universities through the King Abdullah Scholarship Program.
There are about 130,000 Saudi students overseas, with an estimated 70,000 enrolled in universities in the United States.
HRDF officials say they will make a formal announcement in about two weeks to outline the details of the initiative, which is run in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education.
HRDF officials said that the launch will be in two phases. Phase 1 will focus on overseas Saudi graduates and Phase 2 will be launched for graduates of local universities.
“It will help create job opportunities for overseas Saudi graduates when they return home,” said an HRDF official, who did not want to be identified because the formal launch of the program has not been implemented.
HRDF hopes that Jahiz will bridge the gap between the time the student returns home from studying abroad to the time to gain a job.
Abdullah Al-Shihri, 38, who was a “mahram” for a Saudi university student in the United States, said the program will give much needed assistantance to new graduates.
“My niece is very worried that she won’t have a job when she comes home,” he said. “This will at least give her a chance to compete with other job-seekers.”
The program essentially acts as a conduit between fresh graduates and potential employers. “The student registers his or her data in a special electronic site,” the HRDF official said. “The site will work as a liaison between the student and the labor market. The site has search engines that will match the qualifications of the student with the jobs available at the labor market.”
He said some jobs require Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees only. Other jobs may require students to have graduate degrees.
“Jahiz will also work on developing the skills of students so that the student can, as much as possible, meet the requirements of the jobs,” he said.