November 13th, 2012 Rewiring Business
There is an old saying that goes “necessity is the mother of invention”. It is a saying that still holds true for today’s young entrepreneurs.
Before me sits Iba Masood, a twenty-three year old Dubai-based entrepreneur and finalist of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award who, together with her co-founder Syed Ahmed, has developed an web-based career portal that helps address one of the world’s most worrying trends: rising youth unemployment.
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November 8th, 2012 The Next Women
There is an old saying that goes “necessity is the mother of invention”. It is a saying that still holds true for today’s young entrepreneurs.
Before me sits Iba Masood, a twenty-three year old Dubai-based entrepreneur and finalist of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award who, together with her co-founder Syed Ahmed, has developed an web-based career portal that helps address one of the world’s most worrying trends: rising youth unemployment.
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October 21th, 2012 TheNational
One of the UAE’s youngest and brightest businesswomen, Iba Masood, has received a very special 23rd birthday present from Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi. Earlier this month, the Minister of Foreign Trade was in Deauville, France, to recognise the region’s most promising entrepreneurs at the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards (CWIA), a programme she has supported for six years. We travelled to France to catch up with Sheikha Lubna and Masood.
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October 19th, 2012 INSEAD, The Business School for the World
INSEAD, the leading international business school , celebrated the sixth anniversary of its partnership with the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, and announced the winners 2012 At the Women’s Forum in Deauville, France.
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August 25th, 2012 Gulf News
Iba Masoud, a Pakistani national and a UAE resident, graduated from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) with a magna cum laude bachelor’s degree in finance is now a 2012 Cartier Women’s Initiative Award finalist.
Masoud, 22, is co-founder and CEO of Gradberry online jobs portal for students and graduates and is hoping to become one of the winners of the Cartier Award in October.
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August 7th, 2012 Huffington Post
As a fresh graduate in the Middle East in 2010, I was lost and confused. University had only taken me so far; I had theories and equations in my head and a magna cum laude degree in my hands. On the other hand, I barely had any idea as to how to apply this knowledge, and actually get a job and start a promising career. It was during this time I realized that I wasn’t alone. Graduates were lacking direction; they needed a helping hand to get them started on the right path.
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September 28th, 2012 Gulf News
As is case with any fresh graduate, Rana Ashour was eager for a job. She soon found herself working as a structural engineer at an engineering consultancy, which was where she discovered a passion for creativity.
She would craft tiny gifts for family and friends for occasions such as Eid, weddings and baby showers. The response encouraged Ashour to create a group on Facebook where she shared pictures and information about her handmade gifts.
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July 10th, 2012 KhaleejTimes
Alooming question in the minds of most of the fresh graduates is: ‘what next?’ Conventional job websites are not giving desired results and many have huge loans to pay off.
In a bid to provide a solution to the woes of fresh graduates, 22-year-old Pakistani entrepreneurs Iba Masood and Syed Ahmed enter with their website gradberry.com. Since its inception in November 2011, gradberry.com, exclusively made for fresh graduates, internship seekers and those seeking freelance positions, has over 8,000 registered members with a very high success rate. The site records a million hits every month. “We expect the number of our members will increase to 10,000 by the end of next month,” said Masood.
The website has connections with over 350 companies which include IBM, Philips, McCollins Media and Aramex among others
May 26, 2012 TheNational
A fruitful year for jobs portal Gradberry
Iba Masood quit her job in the media last year to help other recent university graduates find jobs.
Topic Jobs Sharjah Google Youth in the Muslim World Dubai Unemployment and it was a good thing for them that she did. Since November she has helped 70 people to find employment through a web portal she co-founded.More than 100 employers, including Google, have used the site to find prospective workers.Students from 550 universities worldwide have made use of Gradberry, the Middle East’s first job portal for students and graduates.
User numbers have increased to almost 500,000 from 2,000 last year and the website has received almost 2 million views.
April 3, 2012 Yahoo Finance
The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit institution that is strengthening and inspiring the leadership of the social sector and their partners in business and government, announces the annual opportunity for 50 key college student leaders worldwide to participate in a four-day Leadership Summit, Saturday, July 21 — Tuesday, July 24, 2012, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, where they will learn how to be effective, ethical, and innovative leaders.
The Institute is also seeking nominations for the NEXT Leader of the Future award recipients, who will be invited to New York City to attend the award dinner and will be recognized for their community contributions. Nomination Deadline: July 1, 2012 NOMINATE ONLINE.
March 27, 2012 Gulf Business
A real up-and-comer for 2012, Gradberry is the Middle East’s online careers portal connecting students, graduates and employers.
Launched in November 2011, it has reached out to a network of more than 5,000 youths across the region and successfully hired graduates for multinationals and SMEs in the UAE.
The Fruit Bowl, Gradberry’s career blog, does a noble job as a career search resource for students and new grads.
While Gradberry will ultimately compete with Laimoon, as well as giants like Bayt, Dubizzle, and Gulf Talent, it may be of immediate relevance to SMEs with limited budgets for talent acquisition.
March 20, 2012 Zawya
Gradberry signs knowledge agreement with American University in Dubai
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, March 20, 2012–Gradberry, the Middle East’s leading careers portal, has signed a knowledge agreement with the American University in Dubai , one of the first such knowledge exchange partnerships in the region.
As a part of the agreement, AUD students will be actively encouraged to use the portal, both for finding jobs and obtaining career advice through Gradberry’s blog, the Fruit Bowl. “The University knowledge agreements strengthen our commitment to actively help students and graduates in starting their careers,” said Gradberry CEO Iba Masood, ” AUD is one of the leading institutions in the Middle East, and we’re excited to have their students find opportunities through the portal.”
March 11, 2012 Gulf News
Student start-up forms corporate partnerships in UAE
The proof is in the pudding as they say, and in this case the pudding would be three recently confirmed university partnerships. Gradberry.com has recently formed knowledge collaborations with Middlesex University, Heriot-Watt University Dubai and the American University in Dubai and is in talks with several other institutions across the emirate.
“Initially gradberry.com would have an active presence at university career fairs to help students with some issues they face and give them graduate career advice,” said Masoud. “However, things are very experimental at this stage, but they are flexible working partnerships.”
“We are ecstatic because not only have universities initiated partnerships with us but also corporate entities such as the National Career Fair in the UAE,” she said. “This is a very young start-up and also because everyone on the team is below the age of 23.”
March 9, 2012 UNI,University Magazine
Heriot Watt signs knowledge partnership with Gradberry
Heriot-Watt University’s Dubai Campus has become the first University in Academic City to sign a knowledge partnership with Gradberry, a website designed and developed with the aim of supporting students and fresh graduates in their search for employment.
The partnership is key in raising employability for our students in the region and increasing opportunities for Heriot-Watt University as an industry link. As a part of the agreement, Heriot-Watt students will be actively encouraged to use the portal, both for finding jobs and obtaining career advice through Gradberry’s blog, the Fruit Bowl.
March 7, 2012 Gulf News
Bridging the recruiter-graduate gap in Middle East
If the business is rooted in the digital world, anything is possible. This is what the promoters of Gradberry — a portal which does job listings and blogs in equal measure — are hoping for.
“The fact is, current job portals focus on experienced professionals — Gradberry, on the other hand, is a distinct careers portal that caters exclusively to students and graduates with zero to two years of work experience,” Iba Masoud, co-founder and CEO, said.
“Youth unemployment is at its peak in the Middle East — the highest in the world at 26 per cent. Universities are at their highest capacity levels in 10 years. Hence, the need for a portal which bridges the gap between employers, universities and youth.
February 29th, 2012 The National
Who’s managing the managers, new survey asks
What happens to your work when you get cranky? A researcher at the University of Wollongong in Dubai is hoping to find out.
Dr Peter Hosie, the university’s associate professor of management, is conducting a study of managers’ job satisfaction and its effects on the workplace.The project began as a doctoral thesis in Australia. Now based in Dubai, Dr Hosie is keen to continue the work.
Iba Masood, the founder of the graduate recruitment website Gradberry, said such research would be extremely useful in the UAE where almost nothing had been done on the subject.
“We’re still working on transparency in the region so this kind of industry review would be very helpful,” Ms Masood said. “It would allow people to see their possible career progression and would be a good indication of how a company is to work for.”
February 26th, 2012 Khaleej Times
The Fruit Bowl blog, launched by careers portal Gradberry in December, has proven to be a hit with students, graduates and career professionals, accumulating over 500,000 views and 600 daily visits in just two months.
Aiming to provide career resources and advice to students and fresh graduates from the Middle East, the blog focuses on innovative methods to land a job and tips to stand out from the crowd.With over 50 active blog posts on The Fruit Bowl, the site is uploaded daily with new posts. The articles are written by a team of 14 students and graduates from all over the world, each bringing their own insight and experience.
February 21th, 2012 AlBayan
500 ألف شخص يزورون مدوّنة «طبق الفاكهة» لتوظيف الطلاب
م الماضي، معدلّات زيارة عالية، وصلت إلى إجمالي 500 ألف زيارة في 6 أسابيع فقط، و600 قراءة يومية من قبل الطلبة الجامعيين والخريجين الجدد ومختصي التوظيف.
تهدف المدونة إلى توفير مصادر تعليمية توجيهية في قطاع التوظيف للطلبة والخريجين الجدد في الشرق الأوسط، وذلك عبر نصائح وتوجيهات مقدّمة بأسلوب جاذب وسهل التطبيق. تشترك المدونة مع مدونات عالمية رائدة في تقديم خدمات التوظيف مثل مدونتي Youtern وMyFootpath الأميركيتين.
January 4th, 2012 Wamda
Gradberry Offers Small Businesses Access to Fresh College Graduates in the Middle East
With Bayt.com’s recent survey on job perceptions revealing that most college grads in the Arab World prefer to pursue government and civil service or financial sector jobs, it’s clear that many recent graduates are choosing well-defined career paths. Yet new job search website Gradberry may open up graduates’ access to a wider set of options at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by offering job postings focused on entry-level positions, internships, and freelance positions.
December 28th, 2011 Studio One, Dubai ONE TV
November 2011, 2011 AUS Connect
Alumna sets up Gradberry, A careers Portal
Alumna Iba Masood , a recent graduate, has started her own online career portal known as Gradberry.
Iba, a Pakistani national who grew up in UAE,graduated from AUS with bachelors of science degree in Business Administration/Finance with a minor in marketing in 2010.Her finance degree got her a job at General Electric.However Iba felt that it wasn’t what she wanted to do.
“Gradberry is an online careers portal, connecting employers with students, fresh graduates, and universities.My colleague, Syed Ahmed and I are the co-founders,” indicated Iba.Syed class of 2011,is a graduate of AUS.He holds a bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
October 28th, 2011 The National
One study released this year found that 81 per cent of students surveyed in the UK said they had not found social media to be useful in their hunt for jobs. And a growing group of entrepreneurs argues that big online job boards such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com are not always the most helpful for all job seekers.
That’s why some of them have recently launched their own niche alternatives.
October 25th, 2011 The National
DUBAI // The Biotechnology University College is in its second year, but already has 150 students enrolled for its sole undergraduate course.
The college, funded by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and based in Dubai, is one of five institutions offering the course so far in the UAE, whose higher education landscape is dominated by business degrees.
October 12th, 2011 PC World Middle East
Syed Ahmed, the CTO of gradberry, discusses tech and design for the website a Gitex 2011, with PCWORLDME.
October 7th, 2011 BBC World - Middle East Business Report
October 5th, 2011 The National
Amity University opens the market by degrees
Last year in Dubai, 42 per cent of students were enrolled in business degrees, with 20 universities and business schools offering 25 master of business administration (MBA) degrees. Iba Masood, the chief executive of Gradberry, a new portal for student internships and graduate placements, said Dubai’s educational landscape had a need for niche programmes.
October 3rd, 2011 Abu Dhabi Week
Gradberry, the Middle East’s first social recruitment portal connecting students, graduates and employers, launches today. Within a month of its soft opening, the start-up has reached out to a network of more than 2,800 youth across the region and successfully recruited graduates for multinationals and SMEs in the UAE.
October 3rd, 2011 7 Days UAE
Facing a tough career market after university, jobseekers in the UAE now have one more avenue to help get noticed – Gradberry.com, an online jobs gateway aimed squarely at graduates and students, which launches today.
October 3rd, 2011 Al Bayan
أطلقت جرابيري رسميا أول بوابة توظيف إلكترونية للطلاب وخريجي الجامعات بمنطقة الشرق الأوسط بهدف إتاحة فرصة التواصل مع المؤسسات العامة والخاصة. تأسست جرادبيري، وهي أول شبكة إلكترونية متخصصة لهذه الفئة من قبل مجموعة من الشباب حديثي التخرج لتساهم في توظيف الطلاب الباحثين عن فرص التدريب العملي وخريجي الجامعات الجدد الذين لا تزيد خبرتهم عن سنتين فقط.
October 2nd, 2011 Dubai One TV
September 11th, 2011 The National
DUBAI // Disha Laungani applied for several positions on popular career websites with no luck, even though she had earned a college degree and an MBA.
But after three months of searching, she submitted an application to Gradberry, a new website for recent graduates, and immediately got a job interview.
September 11th, 2011 Gulf News
Commenting on the unusual name for her venture, Masood said she wanted fruit to be a part of the branding. “We’re planting careers because graduates are fruits of the future.”
She explained the portal gives graduates the opportunity to apply for jobs with zero to two years work experience. “We also give career advice and help them figure out their path.”
