LinkedIn of Arabia? Egypt’s answer to the recruitment question

It is often the case that entrepreneur experts advise those in their field not to think of regional expansion before their project has reached a certain stage of maturity, such as saturating the local market. But what if this maturity and regional expansion were linked?

This is where Egypt’s answer to LinkedIn comes in. Jobzella was launched a year ago and already its founders have decided to expand to the Gulf by opening offices and directing marketing campaigns in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait.

Given Egypt’s political situation after January 2011, the closure of many companies and soaring rate of unemployment, the local maturity partnered with regional expansion was different to what might have occurred before. Their now large export of labor is feeding into the labor imports needed in the Gulf countries into which Jobzella wishes to expand. Add into that the UAE’s preparations to host the Expo 2020 and Qatar’s expected hosting of the 2022 World Cup, two events for which much labor is needed.

Established by former bayt.com country manager Nader El-Batrawi and bayt.com regional general manager Jamal Suboh, the Jobzella guys hired Khaled Elaimy as a CTO and later Khalid Ismail as an investor and member of the board of directors. With KI Angel as one of the leading VC companies in Egypt it’s owner Ismail acquired 15% of Jobzella in November 2013. Jobzella now also has 20 employees.

Job sites in the Arab world

The momentum of employment websites in the Arab region – the most notable of which are bayt.com, Akhtaboot, Laimoon, and Wuzzuf – did not stand in the way of Jobzella’s founders. On the contrary, the success of other sites motivated them to provide a platform that saves users time and effort when searching for a job.

LinkedIn of Arabia? Egypt’s answer to the recruitment question