Bosletak: An Online Guide to Jobs and Colleges in Egypt
Right after
the end of summer, high school and college graduates start thinking
about their next steps, whether that involves applying to college
or searching for a job.
One resource they can turn to is Bosletak, an online
guide that helps Egyptian youth discover their interests and choose
their educational or professional path.
The startup, founded in 2011 by Ahmad Al Noushoukati, a computer
engineer from Alexandria, launched in 2012 to offer articles and
visual content to guide students and graduates towards different
colleges, universities and institutes in all over Egypt, while
helping them make decisions.
Thanks to a financial support from Nahdet Al Mahrousa and Yahoo
Maktoob, which granted it the ‘Social Innovation Starts from You’
award, the site has been able to grow its content to showcase
video-recorded meetings with academics, experts and celebrities in
various fields, to make the search process that much simpler.
Bosletak also provides different services such as an online forum,
an information portal and interactive activities, where students
can communicate and share their experiences. Among these are
psychological tests students and graduates can take to analyse
their personalities and help them choose what field is more
suitable for them (not unlike the data matching service
on FreshGrad, which was launched by a Lebanese
entrepreneur but is not localized to the Middle East). These
scientific tests have been approved by Tamheed and their
evaluations are adopted by the Psychological British Society.
On the ground, the Bosletak founders are organizing events twice a
year, one of which is a conference called "Know Your Way." Other
events are targeted towards specific audiences, such as fathers
explaining their jobs to children and colleagues during Father’s
Day in school and other places.
Is it Profitable?
One question
to ask about a startup like Bosletak is, how can it prevail and
generate money, if its services are seasonal, predominantly being
used over the summer?
The answer is training. The startup offers online training which
subscribers can register for online. Next summer, the website will
launch a job service that allows companies to pay fees for listing
job postings, which will bring Bosletak into competition with
typical job search sites like Bayt, Akhtaboot, Wuzzuf, and Laimoon, and skill search site Nabbesh.
Another question follows: why could companies want to post on
Bosletak and not on a more famous recruiting website?
What makes Bosletak special is that it considers students as the
main audience, unlike most others. Of estimated 3-5 million
currently students in Egypt, according to the Information and
Decision Support Center of the Egyptian Cabinet, Bosletak reaches
about 2%, according to Al Noushoukati, who of course plans to reach
more as the startup grows.
However the question remains, “Do companies really want to hire
fresh graduates?” When looking at the majority of job postings, it
is obvious that previous experience is necessary when applying to a
job.