Telecom is one sector that is booming like hell in Pakistan. Though it started few years back with Mobilink being the pioneer and the first to step in but within years we have approximately 4-5 telecom companies feeding the ever hungry need of Pakistani Consumers.

Though i am a big fan of Mobilink but recently Telenor have been working really hard in the sector and one thing that needs to be praised for telenor is that they are investing into ideas and bringing new stuff to town. First it was Telenor Tv which was copied by Mobilink as MobiTv and now Telenor have signed up with Opera Mini to bring a fast and exciting web experience to its consumers.

Riding on the tremendous growth of telecom sector in Pakistan, Telenor Pakistan and Opera Software have partnered to provide users with a uniquely powerful and efficient Internet experience. Starting immediately, Telenor Pakistan customers can surf the Web with the revolutionary Opera Mini browser.

Opera Mini utilizes Opera’s compression technology to pre-process and compress Web pages by up to 90% before sending them to mobile phones, keeping download costs under control. Opera Mini has a loyal fan base of more than 44 million cumulative users. Its ability to download pages at lightning speeds, coupled with fun features such as Opera Zoom, positions it as the world’s most popular mobile Web browser.

The telecom sector in Pakistan has grown exponentially and mobile operators are among the major architects of this phenomenon. Based on Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) stats for March 2008, the total number of mobile subscribers stands at 82.5 million with a countrywide tele-density of 52.16%. The average growth rate in Q1, 2008 was an attractive 1.88 million new subscribers each month.

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On a Sunday morning i made a complete attempt to visit the Rozee Job fair 2008 hosted at PC Lahore, but to my shock it was a ciaotic situation, and i failed in even reaching the booth where they were suppose to check my invitation and let me in.

As you might have read the guest post made previously by one of my friend accompanying me so i am sure you get the idea what really happened, so i would definately put some light on the event by showing the pictures that i could get, please see below :

Pictures of Rozee Job Fair 2008 – Lahore Pearl Continental Hotel

Why i cound’nt make to the booths at the Rozee Job Fair

• First Rozee asked me to dress properly as it was a professional gathering which i did, also got hold of my cv & the invitation letter as proposed by Rozee.
• I reached there and found a very non helping staff from Rozee, rude behavior from the security guards and a 20 minute wait in a Que to enter not the job fair but the the security check & brief check of my invitation, scanning of my laptop bag (i understand the security check its for our own security so i don’t mind it).
• Once entered another shocking Que of about 1200 people dressed in formal clothing, i.e. neck ties, suit’s with envelops in hand standing under sun sweating and waiting, on inquiry this is the Que that will lead to the job fair where the booths are and will approximately take about 2-4 hours as the Que was on hold due to lack of space inside the job fair hall.
• After one look at the Que & being a professional i believe this is waist of my time (2-4 hours) & unfair to professionals and Job seekers & if this is the condition outside i wonder what would it look like inside!
• So i dump the idea and within 5 minutes we were out of there.

What went wrong
I think the Job Fair idea hosted by Rozee is becoming a flop, its impossible to screen people for job and take interviews, the event started from 11am – 8pm and the purpose is to give interviews at the Job booths, drop cv’s and get a Job and i wonder how is that possible with such a huge turnover, there is no way any HR dept can work straight 9 hours and in 9 hours conduct interviews, screen people or select them ! Impossible, a single person from HR will take approximately 20 minutes on a single candidate to conduct interview and after 10 interviews his judgment ratio will be totally down.

So how ! how can anybody get hired from the Job Fair booth ? (if some one does get hired plz let me know). If i look at the other end that they can collect CV’s then yes that they can do maybe 1000’s of them but if thats what the Job fair is about why not do that over the web or via Newpaper ad whats the fuss about ?

How can Rozee improve its Job Fair
It can be improved & made more productive here is how ! First the Job Fair event have to be invite only unlike this year and invitations should be send by the companies who have there booth (not rozee who just want to collect a huge crowd), those companies should collect cv’s via web (with a time limit to apply for the job) screen them and then the short listed candidates should be invited to the Job fair for an interview, scheduled to time. This can all be done with the help of e-mail communications & an automated system.

Instead of Booth’s companies should be able to buy interview desks and each desk should have two HR guys from the company who can conduct at least 3 interviews per hour i.e. they can only invite 20 candidates per interview desk. Bigger companies can buy more desks. This way all the 20 interviews conducted from a single desk will be productive and can help both the company to get a skilled staff and skilled people get good jobs.

The staff organizing the event should be a little helpful and should treat the candidates with respect, people in neck ties standing in Que’s gives a really horrible impression.

For crowd gathering those people who don’t get invitations or don’t get selected for the job interview should be invited to 2 or 3 small seminars at a separate hall where skilled people from the industry should speak on topics like guideline to carrier, enhancement of skill set, how to acquire a job, what a perfect candidate represents, how to write good cv’s.

I hope things can be learned this way and the Job fair event hosted by Rozee could be improved unlike last year this year there were less companies who bought the booth which gives a sign of the downfall of the Job fair and eventual extinction of the event.

Guest Post by : Shair Khan >> shair.khan[at the rate of] gmail.com

A week ago I received a mail from rozee.pk informing me to register on their job fair, which (like rest of the guys on rozee), I always do when ever this event is held. So this time I made the mistake of registering and actually wasting some of my precious time to visit this so called fair. Now once I was there I saw a huge group of people standing outside in a queue. Thinking of it as some sort of security check I stood in the line showed the guys my entrance ticket and entered the area designated to job fare. When I entered I had an image that there will be some sort of booths of different companies where we can go and drop our CVs. But what actually happened was that I met another line which was three times as large as the one I met outside and the first question that came into my mind was “what the hell is this?” so I decided to ask an organizer the same question and the answer I received was that we are checking the entrance tickets over here. I asked the guy, what was the previous checking for (as they did the same at the entrance)? He obviously had no answer. Not satisfied by the guy’s attitude I asked another organizer the same question and he said there is no SPACE inside that is why we are holding everybody out here.

Well my question to all the companies out there who were at the job fare is…..If you guys are seriously looking for good talent do you really expect them to wait in an unorganized queue just to throw in their CV’s. OBVIOUSLY NO. People who know their stuff and have applied for executive jobs or senior positions do not have the time to stand in queues. That is what you do when you go to a bank to pay your utility bills.
This was the most unorganized event I had ever attended. Even the Horse and Cattle Show (Qaumi Sanati Numaish) is better organized than this. All I want to say is GROW UP GUYZ if you expect us to be professionals we expect the same from you and in future ORGANIZE an event then invite people

Written by Shair Khan
shair.khan[at]gmail.com

As mentioned previously, Rozee the job portal of Pakistan is holding its 4th job fair which is invite only bases, though i didnt apply for any job on Rozee.pk but some how the nice people at Rozee send me an invite of the job fair, so yes probably i would drop by now:

Things rozee mentioned me to do :

• Print the invitations and bring it along hmmm tough one i dont have a printer
• Dress formally .on SUNDAY get a life people i prefer my summer shorts wont it be fun : ) .. 
• bring 10 coppies of my cv ….. comon i dont have a printer its a digital world i can email 100’s of them

Things i have to do

• Convince some of my lazy friends to acompany me there on SUNDAY chances 99.9% a 4ka from friends ..
• Probably try to find out which of my good friend have a printer i can use
• Damit i just realized its on March 2nd i.e. comming sunday

Rozee our favorite and the only Job site in Pakistan is holding another Job Fair 2008. Today i received an e-mail from them informing me of the upcoming job fair which will be hosted in three cities Lahore, Karachi & Islamabad.

One thing good about this years event in Lahore is that its invite only, previously the Job fair invited tons of people to the Job Fair as the Lahore’s have nothing important to do so to cut the time people just turned up for the event for the sake of it, weather they need a job or not. This turn over did seved its purpose for the advertisers and sponsor and Rozee according to some resources made a business of more then 2 billion, but the purpose of the Job Fair failed. The massive turn around didnt help the candidates to score a job neither it helped the companies find good candidates.So this year Rozee have placed a strict policy in Lahore only, only those will enter the Job fair who get invitations.

So how to get invitations, well its quite simple first you log in to rozee or register for a free account, then once you do that you will see a list of employees i.e. big time companies who have listed there jobs there, all the detail of Job’s is hidden except for designation, you apply for the Job’s if you CV is found eligible you would be invited for the Job fair and probably an interview will be conducted right on the spot.  This step is really good as this will filter all the people who are visiting just for the sake of it, all the people turning up for the Job fair will definately be professionals and the companies who paid heavily for the booth will definately have a good turn over of Positive CV’s and potentially good candidates for the job.

So far i haven’t decided to visit the job fair but part of me seems interested so most probably i ll try to grab an invitation if i get one. If i get an invitation and i go there i would definately cover up the event on my blog with pictures / updates of the live Job fair so keep checking .

For More Information : http://www1.rozee.pk/jobfair/index.php