On June 28, 2007 the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung invited human resource managers from major High Tech companies in Israel to work on strategies to integrate Arab Israelis into the High-Tech work force. Focus of the meeting was a newly launched project called “MATCH” – Matching Arab Israelis to Careers in High-Tech.

Although almost twenty percent of the Israeli citizens are Arab, their representation in Israel’s High-Tech sector is a mere 2.8 percent. Instead of being able to find employment according to their skills, graduates either end up becoming teachers, some manage to found own businesses but many stay unemployed. The reasons for not finding employment are multiple and have been the issue of previous KAS-CJAED conferences and surveys. Amongst others, one problem is the lack of guidance on the Arab side when applying to companies and how to present their personal abilities. Many job seekers send out dozens of CVs every day without even receiving an answer. On the other hand, in many companies, applicants with Arab names do not even stand a chance of being invited to an interview. Another problem is the fact that a high number of vacancies are filled by friends of the employees and are not advertised at all.

When addressing the High-Tech companies it is important to point out the advantages they gain from employing Israeli Arabs. Diversity in the work force is to the benefit of the company. Given a chance, Israeli Arabs work hard to prove their skills and are highly motivated. Especially in the field of High-Tech, the quality of the work is very well measurable and not dependent on subjective evaluation. Those companies with Arab employees can verify their excellent experiences.

Since one of the main obstacles is actually bringing together the adequate applicants with the people in charge at the High-Tech companies and for them being able to get a foot in the door as Israeli Arabs, the project “MATCH” - Matching Arab-Israelis to Careers in High Tech - was developed to provide the missing link. This new project was introduced to the resource managers attending the conference. It was the first step in establishing a large network of companies who are constantly hiring new personnel. On the one hand, MATCH will discuss with the respective resource managers new vacancies and the skills required for the specific job. On the other hand, it will identify matching Arab-Israeli applicants and set up the connection with the high tech company. MATCH will also provide general services for Arab-Israeli applicants such as training them how to present themselves, how to make it to a personal interview etc. As a profit oriented sector where only performance counts and using an universal language, the high-tech industry is the perfect field to initiate social changes.

Katja Tsafrir