Providing career guidance to Egyptian youth through ILO job search clubs (JSC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports

Job search clubs provide an enabling environment where young people gather and share resources and contacts, while searching for jobs in various fields under the supervision of trained facilitators. The ILO in Egypt will leverage and strengthen these services in the context of the PROSPECTS programme.

News | 10 September 2020
Job search clubs play a key role in enhancing youth employment, providing intensive coaching on job search related skills. These two-week ventures use a specific methodology to activate and engage youth in searching for jobs, teaching them to reach out to the hidden job market, and creating a support group of individuals with similar needs and a network that fosters successful job hunting. The objective of the clubs is to enable job seekers to find suitable employment within the shortest feasible time frame. The ILO will leverage and strengthen these services in the framework of PROSPECTS.
“The job search club is a place where young people gather and share resources and contacts, while searching for jobs under the supervision of a trained facilitator... We try to encourage them to find jobs that are not advertised.” Christine Hofmann, ILO Skills Development Specialist

Club members meet on a daily basis over two weeks (or until they find a job), under the supervision of a trained facilitator who provides them with the guidance, information and tools they need during their search for employment. Moreover, members help one another to enhance their job-hunting skills, providing mutual support and encouragement. In addition to the regular group meetings, members receive one-to-one coaching with the facilitator. Ideally, a new club is created each month.

Following an initial assessment of their personal interests, skills and occupational goals, the members learn how to deal with various challenges such as gathering job leads from various sources, conducting information interviews with practitioners about the occupations of interest to them, discovering the “hidden job market”, filling out applications, writing CVs, making telephone contacts, handling potentially stressful situations, and managing telephone and face-to-face interviews.

JSC were launched in 2017 in four governorates. Since then, they have been integrated into the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) annual work plan and rolled out in 15 additional governorates. In 2018, 762 unemployed young people participated, of whom 360 subsequently found a job.

PROSPECTS is intensifying the roll-out of job search clubs for refugees and host communities, young women and men, in Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Damietta, in particular by:
  • training 50–60 facilitators from MoYS in the target governorate, who will receive a certification granting them the right to roll out clubs in governorates;
  • supporting the roll out for 30 Job Search Clubs to train 600 youth from the host community in Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Damietta;
  • adapting the Job Search Club facilitator’s manual to be more inclusive of the refugee population in Egypt