Alooming question in the minds of most of the fresh graduates is: ‘what next?’ Conventional job websites are not giving desired results and many have huge loans to pay off.

In a bid to provide a solution to the woes of fresh graduates, 22-year-old Pakistani entrepreneurs Iba Masood and Syed Ahmed enter with their website gradberry.com. Since its inception in November 2011, gradberry.com, exclusively made for fresh graduates, internship seekers and those seeking freelance positions, has over 8,000 registered members with a very high success rate. The site records a million hits every month. “We expect the number of our members will increase to 10,000 by the end of next month,” said Masood.

The website has connections with over 350 companies which include IBM, Philips, McCollins Media and Aramex among others.

What makes gradberry so successful? Masood said: “The concept is a lot like a student-led start up. We recognised a big gap in the market. When we spoke to employers, they did not know where to go for interns and graduates are unclear about the procedures to apply for vacancies.”

She added: “Graduates are like the fruits of the future. Every company needs fresh talent. There is quite a difference between someone who has been working for 2-3 years and a fresher.” Masood, the CEO and co-founder of gradberry.com, quit her full-time job to pursue the website in 2011. Apart from job seekers registration and employer registration, the site has a micro-blogging page called the Fruit Bowl that give job seekers advice on how to prepare themselves for a job and an interview. There is a critical need for a portal like this in UAE.
Challenges

“One of the things that we found in our surveys is that as students graduate, a lot of information that they have accumulated in college get outdated,” she added. Though several of the applicants who have approached gradberry are good candidates for the vacancy, they lack in basic skills like writing a presentable CV. “Applicants have very little information on social media and many of them cannot write about themselves in their CVs,” she added.

Masood stated that one of the biggest problems in the UAE is that hiring mechanism is outdated as compared to the US or UK. “Several companies still follow the Monster.com format, whereas social media is the next big thing in the recruitment landscape. The system here is about 4-5 years old. Apart from websites like gradberry, you also have vacancies available on Linkedin. But despite the numerous vacancies that are posted on the site, its penetration is limited here in the UAE,” stated Masood. The website works closely with the Dubai International Academic City, Herriot Watt University, the American University of Dubai, American University of Sharjah etc. The young entrepreneurs said that they faced several challenges before officially setting up the website. “There isn’t enough information on procedures or legislations involved for setting up your firm,” she said. The support entrepreneurs receive is limited. Masood stated that the support given for a venture in retail, trade or supply business in much more here in the UAE. “When you look at online businesses, the legislative procedures are very vague. There is a large amount of capital you need to pay out for a licence as well,” she added.

For graduates like Fadl Abbas, who graduated in 2009, gradberry came as a sweet respite. “With other mainstream portals, I received one interview for every 50 applications I sent. I applied to a position through gradberry, and was interviewed within one week of applying,” he said. He is currently a sales executive at tbreak.com

For those job hunting, post your resume on gradberry.com. Need to know how to write the right CV, check out gradberry.com/thefruitbowl.