Top 10 Employability Skills

To be successful on the job requires you to possess certain traits and skills. Business leaders and human resources generally agreed that the following list is crucial for the success of new generation, and old as well, in this new economy.

1. Communication skills (verbal and written)
2. Honesty / Integrity 
3. Teamwork skills
4. Interpersonal skills
5. Self-motivation / Initiative
6. Strong work ethic
7. Analytical skills
8. Technology skills
9. Organizational skills
10. Creative minds

Evaluate yourself on each of these traits either on a scrap paper or with your teacher or friend. Note down your areas of strength and areas of improvement on these skills and traits.

Make them part of your career goals/plans. If you have one then it's great! if not then make one.

Punjab Youth Helpline

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the Department of Youth Affairs, Sports, Archaeology and Tourism and Plan Pakistan to launch a toll-free Punjab Youth Helpline.

Ufone Assists in TCF Career Counseling Programme

Taking a step forward to promote education amongst the underprivileged, Ufone Volunteers took part in “The Citizens Foundation’s (TCF) Career Counseling programme.

Since inception Ufone has had a major focus on child health care and education. TCF’s ‘Career Counseling Program’ is designed for TCF students who were appearing for the Matriculation examinations this year.

With the use of a pre-designed personality test and other self-appraisal exercises, counselors helped discover and highlight the aptitude of the concerned young adult. Through this process of derivation, the aim of the counselor is to increase each individual’s self-awareness and map future career opportunities for them. This process will help enable the young adult to become focused and work towards realistic and achievable goals.

In continuation of Ufone’s collaboration with TCF, TCF organized workshops in Lahore and Karachi for Ufone volunteers to prepare the volunteers to act as mentors and instill in them the knowledge and expertise to carry out counseling activities as per the objective of the programme.

Akbar Khan, Chief Marketing Officer at Ufone, said that the volunteers were very keen on sharing their experiences with the students at TCF schools. He said that the aim was to make a difference, no matter how big or small, in the lives of these children.

Ufone, being a socially responsible organization continues to be at the forefront of many mentor initiatives. Since inception Ufone has taken serious interest in in-house and external CSR projects and over the last few years, has carried out various initiatives that benefit the deserving segments of the society. These initiatives have profited the populace as well as provided an opportunity for the volunteers to fully appreciate the art of distributing knowledge.

Primary Link: http://tinyurl.com/cr6tbbe

Ufone Holds The Citizens Foundation’s Career Counseling Programme

Taking a step forward to promote education amongst the underprivileged, Ufone Volunteers are actively taking part in “The Citizens Foundation’s (TCF) Career Counselling Programme.

Since inception Ufone has had a major focus in child health care an education. TCF’s Career Counselling Program’ is designed for TCF students who were appearing for the Matriculation examinations this year. With the use of pre-designed personality test other self-appraisal exercises, counselors helped discover and highlight the aptitude of the concerned young adult. Through this process of derivation, the aim of the counselor is to increase each individual’s self-awareness and map future career opportunities for them. This process will help enable the young adult to become focused and work towards realistic and achievable goals.

IN continuation of Ufone’s collaboration with TCF, TCF organized workshops in Lahore and Karachi for Ufone volunteers to prepare the volunteers to act as mentors and instill in them the knowledge and expertise to carry out counselling activities as per the objective of the programme.

Ufone, being a social responsible organization continues to be at the forefront of many mentor initiatives.

Primary Link: http://tinyurl.com/c4rxtt9

Youth factor in Pakistan

Shahzad Ali Gill

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), former American president, once said “We can’t always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for future.” Pakistan is a young country indeed. According to Federal Youth Policy (2008), people in the age group of 15-29 years are taken as young population in Pakistan. The youth is the most valuable asset for a country’s sustainable socio-economic, cultural and political development but in Pakistan, youth is professed to be a problem rather than a resource to be developed. UNDP’s report points out that the proportion of people under the age of 30 years is 68% of the total population of the country from which 37% youth is illiterate, 71% of youth doesn’t receive career counseling at school, 28% finds curriculum irrelevant to the job market, 47% don’t have sports facilities in their localities and 23% youth want to start their own business but not supported at all.

Challenging career opportunity - Speech Language Therapy

By Faiza Abdul Wahab

Deciding on a career is inevitable and integral to every teenager’s future. Our well-wishers advise us to choose a particular profession or to run away from a particular one. There is the father, who says, “Job well-paid honi chahiyay”.

Then mother says, “Job timings flexible honay chahiyein”. The brother has his own little question, “Job aasani se mil jaey gi?” And then there is the grandmother all worked up about your marital prospects, who says, “Bas education jaldi khatam hojaey, shaadi karni hai!”

Well, isn’t there a profession that gives you the best of everything? Of course there is. Speech Language Therapy, also known as Speech Language Pathology is a four-year degree programme bound to give you the most satisfying and well-paid professional life, in the least amount of time.

Speech language therapy in Pakistan

By Amina Siddiqui

Communication is obligatory to the human experience. Since early civilization, man has devised endless means for sharing information, thoughts, ideas, feelings, needs, etc., — non-verbally through gestures, signs, actions, cave drawings, the beating of drums, and verbally through a common set of words and sentences leading to the evolution of umpteen languages on earth.

Communication skills improved over time, from graphic exchanges of pictures to the creation of the alphabet, leading to the emergence of reading and writing skills. Today we communicate through the electronic media, using sophisticated instruments, such as fax and telex machines, computers, television, mobile phones, the Global Positioning System (GPS) installed on seaborne vessels, and much more. Thus the acquisition of speech and language is considered a dynamic skill innate to the human species. However, it is easily influenced by environmental, social, cultural, parental, and biological parameters.
The sad truth we faced in Pakistan until a few years ago was the absence of nationally-qualified professionals in the field of Speech Language Pathology to work with children and adults with communicative impediments and swallowing disorders.