Islamabad Job Fair: Large turnout of girls shows change in mindset

[Naveed Yaseen]

Saadia Khalid & Myra Imran
Contrary to expectations, the large turnout of girls at the two-day Job Fair 2009, organised by the International Islamic University (IIU) in collaboration with the Jang Group, showed an obvious change in the social mindset towards employment of females.

The second day of the fair was reserved for girls who came in big numbers carrying their CVs and related documents. They visited every stall and discussed their career opportunities with the human resource representatives of various organisations besides dropping their CVs for available vacancies.

Coming from different backgrounds, the girls generally liked the idea of reserving a day especially for them and said that it helped them go around the fair freely. Female volunteers organised the day skilfully while guiding every visitor on the arrangements made to facilitate them.

Following Tuesday night’s terrorist attack on a five star hotel in Peshawar, security measures were made even stricter with every visitor having to undergo thorough body search twice even after entering the venue. “It’s for your own security,” commented one volunteer on duty.

Interestingly, mothers, who were found taking great interest in each stall, accompanied a large number of girls. “It is unfortunate that women of our generation wasted their talent and education,” said Rabia Akhtar, one of the mothers visiting the fair.

She said that support of family adds to the confidence of a girl. “I wish for a good career for my daughter and I think that getting a job will further help her in the long run,” she said.

Another mother Saadia Tahir said that more such fairs should be organised for girls. “Girls have equal exposure and talent, all they need is social acceptance and support from family and that is getting better and better with time,” she said.

Talking to ‘The News’, the visiting students appreciated the idea of holding the job fair at a national level. “It is very difficult especially for girls to visit the office of each and every organisation just to drop CV,” said Sajida Mustafa. “Interacting with all big names under one roof is indeed a great opportunity.”

On the other hand, students with a background of political science were a bit disappointed to find no hiring company from their field. Students also demanded more stalls of companies that deal with online employment.

The stallholders said that more girls were applying for human resource management and IT related jobs. In light of the prevailing economic crisis, they said that the job fair was a big success. “We received 1650 applications on the first day and the response is much the same on second day,” said Bilal Haider, at the stall of Wateen.

Bilal said that students were also keen to join in as interns for the sake of gaining experience. “Suitable candidates will be short listed by the HR departments and names of candidates will be entered in our permanent data base for future references,” he said.

Mehtab Siddique at the stall of National Bank said that they received 660 CVs from boys on the first day. “We are glad to see the same enthusiasm today,” he said. Bilal Tareen at the stall of National Aids Control Programme said that they received almost 1,500 CVs.

Talking to ‘The News’ the girls said that they had no restriction from their families to opt for a career. “I am looking for administrative jobs or teaching opportunities because such jobs do not clash with my dress code,” said Fariha Siyal. She was of the view that Islam does not stop girls from pursuing careers.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=182494