"I WANT A JOB"

The hustle and bustle of life today makes us worry about our future earlier than usual. And young people wanting to make a career for themselves or just to be successful sometimes have to look for a job while they are still studying. But here, too, young people can often expect problems.

A vicious circle

Orxan Sultanov is a student who has been looking for a job for a long time. "I have tried to get any kind of reasonable job and had interviews for a salesman-consultant in various shops. But I have been turned down because I don't have any work experience." At the same time, he says, employers don't even want to check his abilities or train him, always wanting someone with experience.

Aygun Aliyeva, another student, says the same. "I graduated from the history faculty at university and I can speak four languages," she says, "and I was confident I would have no problems getting a job. But I had to spend long months searching before I finally got one." It was the same old thing - no work experience. Aygun even offered to work as an apprentice so as to learn the job gradually, but this didn't help.

"…don't kick a man when he's down"

Another big reason for turning down students is they are on short-term employment. Employers are usually interested in people who are happy to work all hours. This especially relates to non-pieceworkers, such as salesmen, office managers and receptionists.

As the manager of one of Baku's biggest employment agencies says, students often come to them looking for work. "They are usually interested in part-time work or piece-work," he says. "In these cases we offer them a job as a sales manager or piece-work in various fields." The pay depends on the type of job offered. For example, salesmen, as well as a fixed wage, also get a commission on each sale. Whereas the job of "piece-workers" is paid depending on how much work has been done.

Recently, with the expansion of the Internet, companies are more and more allowing their staff to work from home. Computer analysts, designers, architects, animators and the makers of computer games and telephone apps - all these are usually young people and many of them work from home. Foreign companies often hire them. This type of cooperation is called "outsourcing". Companies prefer this because a local, albeit a European or American young expert usually wants a higher wage for his services.

But, of course, not all of them are talented and "get along" with a computer. Many young jobseekers, even those who don't have work experience, still have to get it from somewhere.

Others are more fortunate: they get a job in which they are trained or they get the chance to be an apprentice and gain the necessary experience, albeit at first without pay.

"Stuck in a rut" 

In order to get the necessary experience or simply earn some extra cash students often have to agree to take on almost anything, sometimes nothing like their future profession. Most in demand are waiters, salesgirls and delivery people, i.e. jobs which don't require any special expertise or previous experience. The piecework job of an advertising agent is also an excellent opportunity to earn some money and acquire new skills in a fairly popular sphere.

Students are happy to take on such jobs, especially those who getting paid while they learn - a small side-job helps to cover training costs to some degree and is money in the pocket.

There are slightly more job opportunities for young girls. As well as work as a salesgirl, a student can also earn a little money in the many companies specializing in promos - the work is not difficult, often just a few hours a day, and is restricted by the length of the promo - rarely more than a month.

Side jobs in the fast-food chain are also widespread and just as widely advertised. Teymur Mammadov, the director of a fast-food restaurant, says that young students are always happy with them. And no-one demands any special experience - the main thing is to have a smile on your face, work hard and be willing to learn. This type of work suits students a great deal: flexible working hours, payment by the hour and a decent bonus of the chance of making a career. These aren't bad ways of earning some money, although there is one danger, and that is getting "stuck in a rut".

Quite a lot of students and university graduates do not get jobs that suit them. The majority of philologists, lawyers and historians spend years working in offices and get bogged down in routine work. And here the problem of finding jobs for people who have not completed their higher education is closely aligned with problems in the sphere of education.

The welder, the computer analyst and the lawyer

In Soviet times there was a system of distribution and future employment for graduates from higher educational colleges. Anyone who graduated from such an establishment and obtained a qualification could be confident of finding a job. Nowadays, only the graduates of certain professions, such as the oil sphere, and even then not all of them, can be confident they "will not end up on the street". Besides this, there was the remarkable example of the vocational technical college, whose graduates were often disparagingly referred to as "PTUshniki" [PTU in Russian professional, technical college; students of these colleges].

However, the state does give support to young students. With the aim of successfully integrating students and graduates from higher educational establishments into the labour market the State Employment Service of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population is carrying out various measures in Baku and in the regions under the general slogan "First steps in a career". These events, fairs and exhibitions are being held in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. About 80 organizations, 10 per cent of which are state-run, take part every year in the labour market, and the overall number of jobs offered varies between 600 and 700.

What is characteristic is that the labour fairs organized by the state, and also the practice of employment companies, show that those in greatest demand are workers with technical skills, from computer programmers to welders. Nevertheless, lawyers are still more popular than a qualified welder, who is hardly likely to be out of work.