Selection Morocco
A-Excellence
The consortium A-Excellence, Match Excellence and Mon Miroir are fighting the persistent youth unemployment in Morocco through employability and matching programs. Match Excellence is a growing Moroccan Edtech SME with clients across the MENA Region, focusing on helping talent design their careers and matching them with meaningful jobs. A-Excellence aims to provide underprivileged youth in the same region with the training, inspiration, network and mentorship needed to help them realize and reach their full personal and professional potential. Mon Miroir is a strategy and management consulting firm, passionate about the education sector and has contributed to its development for over 14 years. Through this project, the collaborative organisations aim to create and connect youth with employment opportunities but will also aim to create a new paradigm in how the transition from education into the job market is being done in Morocco.
The Problem
Youth unemployment continues to be one of the most significant economic challenges in the MENA region. In Morocco, over 25% of the youth are currently unemployed, whereas 75% of recent graduates end up working in positions not related to their field of study and report feeling unfulfilled. Equally, almost 80% of employers report difficulties in finding talent with the right skillset. There are three main causes explaining this:
- Lack of career orientation in the higher education. Young people have limited awareness of roles that are potentially available to them and report feeling lost and alone after graduation.
- Skills mismatch. Academic degrees and content do not match the current needs of the job market.
- Youth have poor soft skills that are critical to exploring, navigating and pursuing opportunities in the private job markets.
The Solution
The program aims to tackle aforementioned issues, by guaranteeing job placement while aligning with talents’ vision and purpose. This is done with the following two steps:
- Improve and identify a clear focus and vision. This phase is critical to allow youth to clearly understand their aspirations and abilities which will be used in the job matching phase. Ultimately, this will lead to more genuine and meaningful placement and much higher satisfaction from both employers and employees. Consequently, this will transfer to a higher retention rate.
- Match youth and employers and guarantee job offers prior to final selection of talents. Once candidates know they will be selected for a job in the end, their self-esteem and confidence grows, which makes them put more effort into completing the program. Using the innovative matching platform Match Excellence and based on HR needs of partner recruiting companies, 80% or more participants, of which 50% will be women, will be placed yearly into jobs. This will happen both internally and in partner recruiting companies.
In general, the objective of the program is to provide 400 participants every year with inspirational role models, purpose-oriented mindset and soft and hard professional skills to sharpen their talents and identify career opportunities in the private sector.
Additionality
The aim of this project is to become a case study that could be referred to and implemented at a large scale in Morocco. The objective is to involve both Moroccan authorities and Private sector players. For this, the international expertise of the CFYE dealing with similar issues across the developing world is vital. It will provide crucial tools needed not only to succeed in the delivery of this program, but also the scale-up stage. Additionally, the reputation and credibility of CFYE will play a large role in enabling this program to reach the right decision makers that could generalize it across the country. With the help of CFYE, the program will reach out to more youth and create meaningful and long-term impact to their lives.