Headhunting: Lucky Cement goes out on a limb to recruit foreign graduates

Company part of British Council’s initiative, to visit UK universities.

KARACHI: Rarely does an employer go out on a limb for recruitment of entry-level management staff in a job market that is already flush with fresh graduates.

But foreign graduates, especially those who studied in the United Kingdom, seem to be in a league of their own when it comes to their employability.

No wonder that a dozen leading corporate entities from Pakistan are going to visit the UK to hire Pakistani students who are about to graduate from leading British universities.

With the help of the British Council Pakistan, these blue-chip companies will visit three campuses and meet students from as many as 18 universities.

“Our objective is to create a link with students who are about to graduate from UK universities,” said Chaudhry Furqan Aftab, who serves as senior manager for talent at Lucky Cement, one of the companies that will participate in the British Council’s initiative.

“We’ll meet career councillors of these universities and hand over our company literature and brochures to students at subsequent career fairs,” he said, adding the three fairs will take place on the campuses of Brunel University (February 24), the University of Warwick (February 25) and the University of Manchester (February 26).

Other universities whose students have been invited to take part in the three fairs include the University of Oxford, University of Reading, Royal Holloway, University of London, University College London, Kingston University, Loughborough University, Aston University, Bristol University, Coventry University, University of Sheffield, Manchester Metropolitan University, Cardiff University, University of Leeds and University of Salford.

“Lucky Cement is a rapidly expanding company in need of new talent,” Aftab said while referring to its recent acquisition of ICI Pakistan and joint ventures in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Lucky Cement is part of the Yunus Brothers Group, which has interests in textiles, cement, construction, real estate, energy, and commodity trading businesses with an
annual turnover exceeding $750 million.

Aftab said the company will send two managers to the UK to represent Lucky Cement at the fairs. “The starting salary is roughly Rs35,000-Rs40,000. We’ll only short-list candidates during our four-day visit,” he said, adding that he expects to find suitable candidates for about a dozen entry-level jobs at Lucky Cement.

The company aims to hire UK graduates in fields of finance, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, electronics engineering, marketing, brand management, human resources and legal departments.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2014.

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