I arrived in Riyadh in the early hours of this morning.
I will be spending today teaching a class to members of the emergent Saudi career development community. But on Monday and Tuesday I’ll get a bit more of a chance to look around and talk to some people in some of the universities as well as some people at the policy level.
I’m being hosted by the Arab Institute of Mangement (AIMS) who are hoping to become one of the major players in the career development field in Saudi. I’ll be looking forward to working with them more.
This is my second visit to Saudi. I visited first in September 2014. At the time a I wrote a number of pieces but none of them have ever seen the light of day. I’m hoping to write more about Saudi because it is such an intriguing place.
I suppose that the big question for me is about the limits of career guidance as an activity. It is such a western concept , bound up with individualism, social mobility and democratic states. How does such a concept transfer to a very different context? Can it work? Will it be able to do any good? How will its assumptions and basis have to change?
I’ll be trying to think more about these things as my engagement with Saudi Arabia continues.
Adventures in Career Development 