Each student's main goal and dream after graduation is simply to find the suitable job that meets his needs, be consistent with his qualifications and satisfy his ambition. Starting the practical life and entering the market is a turning point in the life of every youth. This phase requires a lot of preparations from youth to be able to find a job and succeed in it. The economic expert Ayman Mahgoub, professor of economics at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, and the chairman of the financial and economic committee at the High Supreme Council for Mass Media and Journalism, explained all the challenges. MARKET NEEDS AND CHALLENGES: According to Mahgoub, there are now certain specialisations that the market needs, much like agriculture specialists aware with the latest irrigation ways to prevent water wasting. Also there is a lack of professional mechanical engineers, the matter that made most of the factories now appoint foreign mechanical engineers. Unfortunately, such needs are not a priority to the College Student Placement Office (SPO) that said, “we shouldn't use the SPO as the only criterion to join the faculties and universities because it adopts a wrong and subjective methodology,” said Mahgoub. “In the past, for example, the Faculty of Law required the highest grades in high school, nowadays faculties of law, commerce and arts take low grades. SPO depends on the supply and demand principle in the selection process of the students, he added, explaining why faculties like medicine and engineering require high grades because most of the students want to join them. Such a way for selection leads to depriving a talented student from joining the faculty he is talented in its field because of his grade while accepting an untalented one with high grades. The first will join a faculty he is not interested in but consistent with his grade so he will not succeed in it.” In the end, both the talented and untalented will not be able after graduation to meet the market needs and will fail in their practical life. “In general, the market needs youth from different specialisations, SPO coordination introduces to the market a higher percentage from certain specialisations thus harming the market, which will suffer from the lack of the other specialisations and this will affect the whole economy as well.” The only solution to this problem is to substitute the SPO with a placement test in all the universities and faculties to assess the capabilities and talents of each student and how they are consistent with the field of the faculty they want to join. “This test exists in all the universities in the US and in Egypt in the Faculty of Fine Arts,” said Mahgoub. FACTORS THAT AFFECTS YOUR JOB HUNT: For this reason, Mahghoub explained that one of the main factors of succeeding in the fierce market competition nowadays and winning a promising job after graduation is improving the undergraduate's skill tools: mastering foreign languages, computer skills and lab activities. Mahghoub added that the lab activities are divided into two parts, theoretical research and market training. Theoretical research should be done by the universities' students throughout the year to increase their knowledge through reading related books to the field they are studying and know the new updates in their specialisation. And finally, training courses in any company related to one's studies, are a must.
