Careersforher: Women Supporting

CAREERSFORHER: WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN!

by Aya Aboshady

Founded by Hala Shalaby and Hala Tantawy, CareersForHer is a platform created by a number of experienced female professionals who seek to help women start, restart and rise in their careers and working lives through reskilling, coaching, training, mentoring and connecting them to potential employers, whether full-time or part time.

Shalaby has over 20 years of experience in the field of Human Resources with a Masters Degree in Business Administration. She’s also the former Chief People Officer for Hassan Allam Holding. Tantawy, on the other hand, has 20 years of experience in the field of Events Planning and Conference Management. She also held a Deputy General Manager position in Event Egypt.

Because we care about everything related to women and are passionate about always supporting them, we had the privilege to speak to Shalaby about CareersForHer and the idea behind the unique project!

1. What was the idea behind the initiative?

From my experience in the corporate world, I realized that women continuously face ongoing challenges and barriers to achievement. And despite the changing trends, many women still 38 March 2020

leave their jobs due to raising a child or maternity leave, increased responsibilities…etc. The reason could be different, but career takes a backseat in each case. For that reason, I decided to be committed to the cause of enabling women to achieve their potential.

Also, Hala Tantawy, Co Founder of CareersForHer took a six year career break when she had her two sons. During her personal journey, she became aware of the challenges women face when trying to re-enter the workforce. She then became committed to the cause of enabling women to restart and rise in their careers. 2. Can you tell us more about the Returnship program? The Returnship Program is a unique opportunity for experienced women to learn new skills, and transform their careers. It’s like an internship for experienced women looking to reenter the corporate market. It’s a 12- week program that provides the perfect opportunity for both job seekers and employers to get to know each other. It also aligns highly skilled candidates with businesses that have a project to be delivered. The program has been adopted by multinational companies in the United States, United Kingdom and the Middle East; that embraced the benefit of working with professional women who have taken a career break and are now ready to get back to their working lives. This paid returnship program will enable women to work on assignments that match their expertise, interests and abilities, and could lead to full-time employment. Additionally, during the returnship experience, they will have the opportunity to update their skills in a real work environment, and work alongside multidisciplinary teams. 3. Are there specific rules or restrictions for women who want to apply and seek a job opportunity through CareersForHer? How do they apply? Finding the right talent can sometimes be a challenge. However, “CareersForHer” is always searching for female professionals who are ready to work with corporate employers. As for the Returnship Program, candidates with a minimum of six years work experience and a career break of one year or more are eligible to apply. Candidates apply through our website: www. careersforher.com by registering, clicking on Returnship Program and uploading the CV. 4. Since you help women find job opportunities in corporates, are you partnering with specific ones? And are there any field restrictions? In the current world, there’s a need for collectively coming together to support our communities and economies irrespective of gender. Women can do pretty much anything they want. There are female professionals in the fields of construction, banking and in technology. However, companies need to treat diversity like a business priority. 5. Tell us more about the CareersForHer conference and career fair, what should we expect from it? Which employers are going to be there? We will organize the first conference and women’s career fair. The conference will be attended by a number of public figures as well as a diverse mix of organizations, whose top management and decision makers genuinely believe in gender diversity in the workplace. Also the career fair represents a great opportunity for employers to select and recruit from a professional female talent pool. It will be an exclusive face-to-face career fair to connect and engage women who are looking for jobs with an exciting and diverse mix of medium and largesized organizations. 6. Is CareersForHer only for women who have taken a break from work for any reason and want to get back to the field or is it for any woman at any age? It is for all women. “CareersForHer” is a platform created with the purpose of helping women start, restart and rise in their careers. The way we do it is hire the right female talent. We aim to connect female professionals who are ready to work with corporate employers to take them to the next level. We work with different companies to offer roles from all industries to allow females to find the perfect new role! 7. What is CareersForHer aiming for in the future? Our aim is to become the number one platform for supporting and enhancing women in business and enabling them to achieve their full potential. March 2020 39

A Q&A With “I MAKE THIS” Group Founder and Moderator RANIA ATEF

by Nada Abdelkader

The original concept behind a social media network is to connect people and innovate new ways of communication and sharing. You’ll find this idea on every social media platform, especially one like Facebook. When they first started out, Facebook groups were merely a means for large groups of friends to connect. Other times, it was just a way so likeminded people would find a safe space to discuss the interests they had in common. In recent years, though, Facebook groups grew and developed and birthed a new life of its own. Now, these groups serve for study groups, expat unions, and even for self-marketing and selling one’s own brand. Naturally, that last reason eventually led to the inception of the ‘I Make This’ group on Facebook, which has reached heights in such a short duration we just had to interview its founder, Rania Atef, about the group, its activities, members, and its next step. What inspired you to start this group? RA: I always saw how my friends, those with their own small projects would always ask us to share their work on Facebook and other social media so that more people would see it. This was an approach I, too, needed to use whenever I wanted to increase my exposure because Facebook ads just didn’t work that well anymore and most Facebook groups asked for a large sum to put an ad in. So, the idea came to me—if we’re always asking our friends to share our work so that their friends could see it, why don’t we just create a group of friends of friends so that we can all share our work to a bigger network? How did this all grow, though, and how did the rest of the members join in? RA: I started by only asking my friends who make stuff to invite their friends in and they were all rather enthusiastic about the idea, so we just started sharing what we all do. The products shared were all actually quite beautiful so after all the shares and interaction from the members and people who stumbled upon it, the group went viral! Everyone was excited about it, all inviting their friends and the growth was exponential. In one month, we had already exceeded the 100K mark! Did you face any obstacles with the group and its founding? RA: Not really, no. The only obstacle in the beginning, I’d say, was explaining the rules to everyone that joined the group—how it works and the like. That’s because we had new members every day so some of them didn’t really understand how the process worked, at first. Of course, this is a minor issue compared to moderating the actual group, though. Well, what were the troubles with the moderating of this group? What worried you? RA: The number of posts submitted was much, much more than the number of hours available in a day! I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but I also didn’t think it was right to share more than 30 posts a day to give each post enough time to be visible and get adequate engagement. Did anyone come forward with something that surprised you personally, in the group? RA: I was more surprised by the diversity of talents shown and the quality of work available out there. I was also proud that there seemed to be nothing that we couldn’t do or offer. I’d had some thoughts before, about how there were certain products that we could only find abroad, but that notion completely changed. On our group, I felt that nothing was out of limits or impossible. Sometimes, the merchandise available was even more creative than their equivalents abroad. So, do you hope to hold any future meetups or displays for your group members? RA: We are already planning for a huge “I Make This” bazar on the 20th of March of this year! We’re all super excited about it—it’s going to be unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before with all the skills and showcases that you’d ever want to see. How do you feel about the group’s rise, though? What do you feel it can offer to its members, other than sharing their talents, of course? RA: Oh, the group has massive potential! I’ve already created a sub-group that’s only for the project owners, I Make This Group Lab. It’s for the project owners to share their experiences, collaborate, and discuss their training needs which I hope to be able to provide as I’m now approached by many entities who want to provide support.