The FINANCIAL — The statement: “I don’t have money, I’m just a student” – has not always applied to the average Georgian student.
The situation has again changed recently as more students are willing to get part-time work experience before they graduate, according to university career planning departments.
19 year old David, 3rd year student of IBSU (Int. Black Sea University) has been working for 4 months as an assistant to photographer Jiji Regini, at Amca model agency. As he told The FINANCIAL, taking photos had nothing to do with his professional studies but it was about making enough money to provide for himself, earning on average about 50 GEL per working day.
“Getting a job on the Georgian market is tough, especially for undergrads which haven’t attained enough experience or qualifications. But those who are skillful and try their best can get one,” David stated.
Students in Georgia mainly get employed either through career development offices at their universities where companies are providing vacancies or by directly applying for jobs listed online on professional networks like mycareer.ge, jobs.ge, and others.
Currently out of three universities, CU, IBSU, and Iliauni there are 59 available vacancies at their career development office desks that are waiting for students to apply.
According to Caucasus University, “Students who are currently studying at CU have jobs, either part-time or full time, the latter are mainly 4th year students who have more free time and a more flexible schedule that allows them to even work full time. In general 90% of CU graduates are employed,” said Khatia Jikia, head of the career development office at CU.
“There are 2,000 students studying at Caucasus University this year. We currently have 10 vacancies available at this point. The average starting salary for CU 2009-2010 year graduates was 600-800 GEL, and 1,000-1,400 GEL for the graduates from previous years,” said Jikia.
Int. Black Sea University (with 950 students currently studying) and Iliauni are also actively employing students based on their studying evaluations/grades hence letting them apply for vacancies sent by various companies operating in Georgia.
From September of this year IBSU has employed 17 students, 6 out of them full time, and 11 for part time jobs. Currently there are 15 vacancies in the database. The majority of the companies sending applications are foreign, especially Turkish firms who need fluent English/Turkish speaking candidates, but there are also Georgian companies too.
At Iliauni, the gross number of MBA, BA, Professional students and Ph.D. students amounts to 8,759 as of October 2010.
From September 2009 till 27 October the number of students who got employed through Iliauni was 208.
As Ketevan Gabunia, from the Iliauni career development centre, told The FINANCIAL, companies primarily want junior and senior year students.
“We employ our students in companies outside as well as inside the university. The most active employers are DMT Group, ProService, VTB, Bank of Georgia, other banks, Newspaper Students leader, also schools and all sorts of other institutions. In addition there are about 25-30 graduates working in the university administration now,” said Gabunia.
“Throughout 2010 there were 292 vacancies announced whilst now there are 34 vacancies available for students at Iliauni. The most active period was May, June and September, when over 40 students got employed each month,” Gabunia told The FINANCIAL.
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