Business & Money | Monday 1 October, 2018 4:30 pm |

A Step Ahead Career Fair has opened in the Prince Sultan Hall at Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, where it is being held for three days from 1st-3rd October 2018.

 

Organized by Glowork, A Step Ahead is the number one female career fair and recruitment related conference in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and is endorsed by the Human Resources Development Fund.

 

A Step Ahead Fair is a Saudi-centric, three-day program designed to empower women from all types of educational backgrounds and experiences. The program effectively helps women to become active agents in today’s booming workforce by enriching their job-hunting opportunities, upgrading their soft skills and enhancing their personal aptitude for learning new skills. 

 

Day one of A Step Ahead Conference opened with a welcome note, followed by a gratitude speech by Noura Abdullah Alrudaini, Women Nationalization Projects Manager at the Nationalization Department at the Ministry of Labor and Social Development.  Alrudaini stated that the efforts put forward by private public partnerships will have a lasting impact on the labor market. Additionally, the government is conducting initiatives to increase female employment from 22 per cent to 30 per cent, which is one of the main goals of vision 2030. The government provides support programs for female employment such as Doroob an e-learning platform, Tamheer On The Job Training, freelancing, remote working, and in the pipeline is a platform for flexible working hours. 

                                                                                                                                           

Awarding the event sponsors was next on the day one agenda, followed by the first panel discussion of the day titled Negotiate With Courage and Get What You Deserve at Job and moderated by Charlotte Edwards, Campus Recruitment Consultant at EY. The panelists were Reema Alharbi, Benefits & Events Section Manager with the HR Services team at STC; Nihad Shelbaya, Public & Government Affairs Manager at ExxonMobil; and Majed Alkhurayef, VP, Acting Head of Recruitment Department at Riyad Bank. 

 

The next speaker was Cor Noltee, Design Thinker at Cornoltee, whose subject was The importance of Creative Thinking.

 

The subject of the second panel discussion was Closing the Gap to Achieve Career Success. The moderator was Julie Leblan, CEO and Founder of My List and the panelists were Eng. Aseel Alhamad, Board Member at SAMF; Ghalia Alsukait, Assistant Brand Manager at Procter& Gamble; and Dharam Veer Sood, Training Manager at Apparel Group. 

 

The final speaker on day one was Dr. Moudhi Aljamea, Cyber Security Consultant and Director of the Entrepreneurship & incubator at IAU.

 

After a break or prayers and lunch, day one of the conference concluded with the third panel discussion titled What Makes You Special at Work? moderated by Saudamini Dubey, Managing Director at Accenture Digital, Middle East and Turkey. The panelists were Saeed Alharbi, Associate CIPD, GM of HR at Olayan Financing Company; Elias Khalil, Managing Director at Lilly Saudi Arabia; and Latifah AlRasheed, Director of HR at Thiqah.

The next event of day one was the Official Opening of A Step Ahead Career Fair 2018, which opened yesterday 1st October from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm and 2nd and 3rd October from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm.

Companies and organizations on board this year include Sabic, STC, ExxonMobil, Sephora, Thiqah, Riyad Bank, Olayan Financing Company, Eli Lilly, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, BCG, Saudi Health Council, KPMG, McKinsey, PWC, Deloitte, Geidia, EY, Interserve, Rodna, Mcdonald's, and Apotex.

 

The list of participants goes on to include Education USA, Accenture, Team Sweden, Arabian Centers, KFSHRC, Dallah Hospital, Careers Come, PepsiCo, Bupa, SAP, Uber, Mission, Alnahda Society, Saudi Business Machines, Lavender Flavour, Chalhoub Group, Dar Alarkan, Stylizer, ISVSC, and KBR.

 

Each of these companies participating in A Step Ahead Career Fair has a booth staffed by HR teams offering female jobseekers and university students advice on their future career paths, as well as conducting interviews for currently available job opportunities. Job candidates are advised to bring their CV and other necessary documents. However, some booths may have an ipad for candidates to fill in the required information.