FAST on Board

Continuously progressing BrightSpyre, Today 24th of April, 2008 has launched a nationwide Job board (http://nu.jobboard.com.pk) for National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences FAST graduates & Alumni. FAST NU is the second university after GIKI for which BrightSpyre has created a platform for students to access jobs under one podium, posted by different companies all over Pakistan. This Job Board was inaugurated by Rector Dr. Amir Muhammed and Director Islamabad FAST Dr. Aftab Maharoof on the occasion of Open house at FAST Islamabad Campus. The purpose of Open house event was an interaction between industry and graduating students from all disciplines on the possibilities of employment and to explore the potential collaboration with faculty in research and development activities. This Job Board will further help graduates/Alumni of FAST in exploring multiple job opportunities and bridging the gap between industry and academia.

BrightSpyre Launches GIKI Job Board

BrightSpyre on Thursday, 10th of April, 2008 has launched Pakistan’s first ever university Job board (http://giki.jobboard.com.pk) for Ghulam Ishaque Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences & Technology (GIKI) graduates. GIKI Job Board was officially inaugurated during "Open House" event by NWFP Governor Mr. Awais Ahmed Ghani. This Job Board was result of combine efforts of BrightSpyre and GIKI Career Cell who took the initiative and introduced this new concept in academia. This Job Board will offer GIKI students and alumni’s & employers direct contact with each other and will also provide easy & quick access to companies to hire fresh graduates from GIKI. This Job Board will also be highly beneficial for the employers from all over Pakistan, as they can easily target GIKI fresh graduates from all disciplines.

In Addition this job board will create a huge opportunity for graduates and graduating students to search jobs under one platform with more awareness about the market trends. BrightSpyre will help in leveraging the relationship between university and employers’, increasing the access to these candidates for employers as BrightSpyre is highly motivated to provide the University recruiting segment in GIKI. BrightSpye has always set their own trends and standards with continuous expansion and growth in Local & International market. Although BrightSpyre has started university job board for first time in Pakistan but has a vast global experience in Job Boards. BrightSpyre has its own Product with the name of personforce (www.personforce.com) in USA. In a very short period of time BrightSpyre has gain a vital place in US academic institutions and it is now highly regarded among the top online location for recruiters in the USA to hire the best talent from prestigious Universities like Harvard, Standford, Cornell and Yale.

Job Board URL: giki.jobboard.com.pk
This news is covered in Green & White and PASHA official website "PASHA News".

Event in Pictures

Career Counselling for IT graduates in Kohat University

Education in IT has grown tremendously; Kohat University of Science & Technology is playing a vital role in grooming its 200 IT graduate students and getting them prepared for challenging global IT industry.

BrightSpyre is expanding its program to all parts of country and playing its major role to provide industry feedback into the academia. In the continuation of its programs BrightSpyre.com conducted its career grooming seminar in Kohat University of Science and Technology on Friday 28th of March, 2008.

BrightSpyre had a career counseling session and resume building workshop with the students of KUST. This session was attended by more than 200 students with faculty members including Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Lutfullah Kakakhel. BrightSpye had a productive discussion with the students regarding current market trends and technologies in which students also shared about their views and perception about industry.

The students showed keen interest in asking how they can apply for jobs online; what are the skill sets required by companies; how they can find internship opportunities; how to compare companies before joining organizations for jobs; how fresh graduates can be hired without having any experience.

In a statement, Vice Chancellor appreciated the initiative taken by BrightSpyre and termed this event as a very healthy & fruitful activity for students of KUST. BrightSpyre is the only recruiting company in Pakistan who has such an extensive university outreach program and first one to visit Kohat-NWFP.

This year, BrightSpyre University Outreach program is scheduled in more than 30 universities from all over Pakistan featuring career guidance, career counseling, workshops, academic seminars and interviews on spot for current open positions. We have helped thousands of graduates and employers make employment connections over the years as we make every effort to provide flawless customer service, promote our programs comprehensively and make success as job seeking and employment clients our highest priority.

BrightSpyre team is grateful for the efforts of Vice Chancellor, faculty members and students who were indeed a great help in organizing such a remarkable and successful event.

• Event in Pictures

BrightSpyre signs MoU with Microsoft

A memorandum of understanding has been signed between BrightSpyre and Microsoft on Wednesday 19th December, 2007 represented by CTO Ahmed Jawad (BrightSpyre) and Country Head Ahmed Kamal (Microsoft). After the continuous negotiations from two parties through which they have successfully identified certain potential collaboration projects and to establish the framework for developing these concepts further together with a road map that will hopefully lead to agreement on the appropriate means for their delivery and implementation.

“This agreement marks as a huge step forward for us while collaborating with Microsoft on these projects and we are very excited to get this opportunity to bring new values and trends in the market” said BrightSpyre CTO Mr. Ahmed Jawad.

In addition both have agreed to do partnership in Microsoft student to business program by engaging with selected and reputable universities to co-manage career guidance events by leveraging the presence of Microsoft Student Partners on campuses.

BrightSpyre and Microsoft will also be in partnership on MSDNAA and IT Academy partnership pilot at local universities. BrightSpyre will be organizing career counselling and career guidance events as joint venture with Microsoft in different universities of Pakistan which will result in huge impact in bringing awareness and exposure among students and universities.

BrightSpyre is still Pakistan's best place and preferred website to find jobs in Pakistan. It is wholly owned and operated by Cogilent Solutions, an ISO-9001-2000 certified company.

BrightSpyre Launches MySpyre.pk

Pakistan's fastest growing email service

On the joyous occasion of Eid-ul-Azha, BrightSpyre launches yet another value-added service for its loyal users. Starting today, all BrightSpyre members can enjoy"MySpyre" (http://www.myspyre.pk/) which is a comprehensive e-mail service with lots of features and extra services.

• Its free, easy and simple to use
• Get 6000 MB of free email Space
• Email accounts are safe, private and secure
• Complete Spam and Virus Protection
• Contacts, Calender, Chat and other tools

This is another milestone achieved by BrightSpyre and it continues to be the largest job portal in Pakistan. BrightSpyre now has striking figures of of 4 Million hits per month and a resume bank of 400,000+ from all over Pakistan and abroad with 450+ companies on the board (http://www.brightspyre.com/).

400,000 and Counting

BrightSpyre continues to grow at an unprecedented pace and has achieved yet another milestone in its short history since its launch in Pakistan in 2002. This past year (the first ten months of 2007), it signed up well over 100,000 unique new job seekers who have flocked to BrightSpyre to find better jobs. Thus, swelling the unique job seeker community on BrightSpyre to 400,000.

“This is the third year in a row, that BrightSpyre has registered over 100,000 unique new users in one calendar year.” boasts Usman Bangash, Manager Sales and Marketing. “It goes onto show that BrightSpyre is still the first choice job portal for all job seekers and employers alike.”

BrightSpyre, owned and operated by Cogilent Solutions, is also credited with initiating and creating the professional online recruitment business in Pakistan.

“Before BrightSpyre, organizations used to rely on newspapers and references”, says Ahmad Jawad, CTO of BrightSpyre. “We not only changed the market, but created a whole new segment within the recruitment sector with our web portal.”

In the past three years, over 1 million jobs applications were submitted through BrightSpyre for various jobs in Pakistan.

"If every resume consists of at least two pages, then BrightSpyre has saved over 2 million pieces of paper by giving users an electronic alternative to apply for jobs and not waste paper over and over again. Thus helping create a "greener" Pakistan." explains Usman Bangash.

BrightSpyre is still the only jobs portal in Pakistan that is ISO-9001-2000 certified and has recruited certified CISSP (Certified Internet Security Professionals) to protect the privacy of its users.

These facts and statistics once again prove that BrightSpyre is still the leading jobs portal in Pakistan.

BrightSpyre participates in ITCN Asia 2007

BrightSpyre participated in this year’s ITCN Asia (Aug 9 -11, 2007) held at the Expo Center in Karachi. The event has grown into the largest IT, Telecom & Media extravaganza of Pakistan. This year ITCN Asia was attended by the region's most influential business professionals, entrepreneurs and policy makers.

BrightSpyre was at the forefront of the event by promoting its services to job seekers as well as potential employers in Pakistan. Please do check out the event in pictures at the BrightSpyre stall at ITCN Asia.

PSEB Joins Hands with BrightSpyre in Launching IT Job Board

On August 9 2007, BrightSpyre in collaboration with PSEB launched Pakistan's first Job Board focused on the IT Industry talent pool.

http://pseb.jobboard.com.pk

“Talent acquisition is the first step in talent management.” Yusuf Husain, Managing Director said at the launching ceremony.

“PSEB and Brightspyre have joined hands together to help the IT industry by upgrading their talent acquisition to international standards besides providing help to the foreign companies in acquiring talent pool directly from Pakistan.” Added the Managing Director at the launching ceremony of the portal at ITCN Asia in Karachi.

PAHSA-BrightSpyre Career Fair Lucky Draw Winners

BrightSpyre announces the winners of the lucky draw held at the PASHA-BrightSpyre Career Fair in Rawalpindi this July. The winners for prizes are :

• Mr. Waqas Asif
• Ms. Nosheen Zaidi
• Mr. Ahsan Masood
• Ms. Nighat Iram
• Mr. Tanvir Ahmad

For more information about the lucky draw please feel free to contact BrightSpyre office. The career fair was a tremendous success BrightSpyre aims to regularly hold such events nationwide.

PASHA-BrightSpyre host a successful Career Fair

BrightSpyre-PASHA hosted an extremely successful and well managed career fair at Rawalpindi. "This is the first time, there has been such a large career fair for job seekers in the city of Rawalpindi", mentioned, Faisal Chohan, from BrightSpyre. Over 3,000 job seekers filtered throughout the day to meet with prospective employers that included companies like Si3, Wateen Telecom, Buraq Telecom, Orgoo, Cisco, Green and White and many others.

There were numerous sessions arranged specifically for young graduates. This included, career advice in various fields including, Resume building, Software engineering, Telecom sector, BPO-Call center and many others.

There was also a separate section where job seekers could get one-on-one career advice through councilors provided by Green & White (www.greenwhite.org).Overall, the event was tremendously successful. BrightSpyre also received hundreds of visitors throughout the day at their booth. At the same time, they interviewed and provided guidance to a lot of potential job seekers.

"The candidates that we interviewed were not only for our own internal hiring, but also for our customers who had requested to seek out good candidates for them." mentioned, Ahmad Jawad, from BrightSpyre.

BrightSpyre is especially thankful to Jehan Ara (PASHA), MAJU Students (Mohammad Ali Jinnah University) and Osama Hashmi's Green and White (www.greenandwhite.org) for making this event extremely successful.

For more information, please click on the links below.

• See the event in Pictures
• View the Blog of Jehan Ara about the Job Fair in Rawalpindi
  

BrightSpyre Partners with Microsoft in Pakistan Developer Conference

BrightSpyre is once again at the forefront when it comes to professional development in Pakistan. This year BrightSpyre is one of the strategic partners with Microsoft in promoting this event in Pakistan. The aim of Pakistan Developer Conference 2007 is to provide a comprehensive technological developments including recently released and upcoming Microsoft development and platform technologies.

There will be numerous focused sessions during the conference that for Windows Vista, Office 2007, Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, BizTalk Server 2006 and many other leading Microsoft Technologies.

It is expected that over 3,000 professionals from all over Pakistan will attend this conference on June 19 and 20 at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. This will be a great opportunity to meet and network with who's who of the industry and Microsoft team. BrightSpyre highly recommends its users to attend the event in either of the three cities.

PASHA-BRIGHTSPYRE Collaborate on THE CAREER EXPO

PASHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) has been instrumental in organizing capacity building events in Pakistan since 2004. This year, PASHA is holding three mega Career Expos in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. These events are focused on fresh graduates and young professionals to assist them in their careers. They will learn more about the kind of careers that are available to them across the spectrum of ICT and will also become aware of the growth and maturity of the sector they are either joining or are already a part of.

The Career Expo shall focus on the following:

1. Job Matchmaking through company booths.

2. Presentations on different career tracks including Software Engineering, BPO/Call Centers, Telecom, New Media & Animation, System Integration, Networking and Finance

3. Interactive Workshops

4. Expert Panels

5. Career Counsellings

The event in Islamabad is co-organized by BrightSpyre (www.BrightSpyre.com) in collaboration with PASHA (www.pasha.org). It will take place at the Convention Center on June 23, 2007.

Please click here for more information about this event.

BrightSpyre Protected by Certified Security Professional

BrightSpyre's now boasts a unique talent in Pakistan. Ahmad Jawad, CTO, BrightSpyre is now one of the unique group of 25 Pakistanis who are CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional) certified Professionals. This exam is managed and undertaken by (ISC)². It is the world's leading authority on information system security. Currently there are around 48,000 certified such professionals around the world. It is a further recognition of the fact that BrightSpyre continues to hire the best talent and continues to maintain a very high standard when it comes to handling data of its prestigious clients.

The role of any CISSP in an organization is:

• Strategic overview of Information Security needs.
• Develop/maintain an Information Security Program.
• Provide advice regarding new information Security technologies.
• Assurance of compliance with regulations.

Under Jawad, BrightSpyre is working deligently to further improve the standard of security and reliability of the largest Job Portal of Pakistan.

"At any given day, there can be as many as 35,000 unique visitors to our web portal. This number is likely to increase to 100,000 daily visitors by the end of 2007." explains Ahmad Jawad.

"This exponential growth requires radical changes in the way the whole Portal is setup. Security of the system needs to be carefully evaluated whenever there are changes in the software or hardware setup of any application. This certification enabled me to further polish my skills and gave me access to a privileged club of Security professionals worldwide. I will bring all that information to BrightSpyre and set a new standard of service." With such ambitions and goals, Jawad hopes to bring about a major change in how security is perceived in Pakistan.

BrightSpyre is owned and operated by Cogilent Solutions which is headquartered in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Online Survey Winner at BrightSpyre.com

BrightSpyre recently conducted an online survey to understand better as to how Pakistanis would prefer to share their grievances when they are faced with injustice. In a short span of time (30 days), an overwhelming number of people responded and 90% of those who replied to the questionnaire, responded that they would like to express their opinion at all levels including being able to voice their anger at international forums. All those individuals who responded were clearly confident in saying that the truth must be told and the distressed should be able to communicate his/her grievances at all appropriate levels.

At the conclusion of the survey there was a lucky draw to award prize to one randomly chosen participant. Miss S. R. Choudhary from Sargodha won the web cam. She is a registered user of BrightSpyre.

BrightSpyre, is Pakistan's largest jobs portal and conducts numerous surveys and draws through out the year and gives away prizes to its valued users.

The 300,000 Club

December 2006 brought about another distinction for BrightSpyre. The job portal became the first website (of any genre) in Pakistan to register 300,000 unique users on its website.

“Today, we have achieved another distinction of registering over 300,000 unique registered users” mentioned, Usman Bangash, Manager Corporate Sales. “Another record for BrightSpyre and for Pakistan. The first time any website has achieved this feat in Pakistan.”

“It goes on to show that job seekers and employers both rely on BrightSpyre when it comes to finding the best jobs and the best talent in Pakistan.” Usman added on the popularity of the job portal.

BrightSpyre is among the pioneer ebusiness based web portals in the country and has been extremely successful in providing jobs in Pakistan since 2002. It is owned and operated by Cogilent Solutions, an ISO-9001-2000 certified company. BrightSpyre has also won the coveted Shell Tameer Award in 2004.

Microsoft and BrightSpyre Collaboration

Microsoft has joined hands with BrightSpyre to promote and provide job seekers with free Microsoft tools and resources to get them started in the growing field of Application Development.

Microsoft in collaboration with BrightSpyre shall provide IT professionals an option to register and receive free copies of MS-Visual Studio® Express and MS-SQL Server™ Express editions. Together the two companies shall also provide links to additional resources from Microsoft Learning. The learning resources and easy-to-use development tools that are made available through this collaboration will help job seekers learn critical skills for jump-starting their professional career in the software development industry.

ISO-9001-2000 Certification Awarded to Cogilent Solutions

Cogilent Solutions, the parent company of popular job search and management portal, BrightSpyre.com achieved another distinction when it received an ISO-9001-2000 certification this March.

“There are only 100 IT companies in Pakistan with this certification and we are now one of them” explained Mr. Faisal Chohan, CEO, Cogilent Solutions. “And we are, so far, the only human resource related IT company with this distinction.” This distinction makes BrightSpyre the only jobs portal in Pakistan with a certification. Further confirming the credentials of the organization and its commitment to job seekers and employers alike.

BVQI, the certification authority, performed the Quality Management Audit and assessed its standards in the Turnkey Solutions provider for fields of Human Resources and Network Solutions. The process of certification was initiated in mid 2005 and completed by January 2006.

BrightSpyre wins Shell Tameer Award

BrightSpyre brings in Second Place Award for Cogilent Solutions in Shell Tameer Young Entrepreneur of the Year Competition


The Shell Company boasts of over 100 years presence in the Indo-Pakistan Sub-Continent proving to be a key player in bolstering the economy by productively helping to utilize natural energy resources and providing much needed jobs to people. However, along with its key financial function, the Company has also been very vitally present in the social sector by promoting its development both through technical and educational resources.
Along with 25 other public service programmes that the Company runs per year, it also initiated Shell LiveWIRE International, a unique programme with an out reach to 23 countries. The LiveWIRE programme was launched as Shell Tameer in Pakistan and has been successfully running in collaboration with partners SMEDA (Operational) and IBA (Developmental) respectively. The purpose being to boost the youth by helping them to acquire skills and enhance existing ones in order that they may apply themselves to finding the right path towards their future careers; not only in the cities at Business School level, but also in remote areas through workshops and vocational training institutes. Suffice to say, this has effectively changed lives of over 300 students (in Pakistan alone) and 10,000 people in general. This is Phase I of the programme.

The Second phase is the ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ Awards given in recognition of brave entrepreneurial spirit. The Programme selects ten outstanding individuals (not necessarily from/beneficiary of Phase I) whose companies are chosen through a series of tough regional and local competitions. After selection, the competitors come together under one roof from all over the country to showcase their businesses for judging purposes and on the basis of original initiative, utilization of resources (financial, human, raw material), successful running and focused enthusiasm and spirit, the winners rise above. These are the very reasons why Brightspyre was entered and it shone through.

The Second Shell Tameer Awards for ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ took place on Tuesday, 14th February, 2004 at Avari Hotel, Lahore. The Chief Guest was Chaudhery Pervaiz Elahi, Chief Minister of The Punjab. Atif Mumtaz, Managing Director and CEO represented Cogilent Solutions. By winning second place, the Company was commended for its originality in HR (Human Resource) Development by providing an alternative, cost effective service which is well on its way to becoming the future of the HR Management process. This is a unique award, more so since Cogilent Solutions was established not so far back in the year 2002 and BrightSpyre was launched in August of the same year. Since its launch, the Company has been climbing securely and productively towards the fulfillment of their vision and has been making inroads all over Pakistan, business potential wise. The entire dynamic team behind the Company and its service’s success must be commended for their hard work, team spirit and belief in themselves. We wish them all the very best and hope to see them achieving much more in the coming years.

BrightSpyre Jobs Portal Launches in Pakistan

The electronic commerce and eBusiness in Pakistan is becoming a reality now. This month, Cogilent Solutions launched BrightSpyre.com as the first professional job portal in Pakistan. The vision of the web portal is to recognize internet as the source of talent acquisition rather than the traditional newspaper and reference model. BrightSpyre creates a direct channel between the quality talent seekers (employers) and human resource (job seekers) available for Pakistan market.

"The goal of BrightSpyre is to become the premium source for jobs in Pakistan." explains Atif Mumtaz, Managing Director of Cogilent Solutions the parent company of BrightSpyre which is headquartered in Islamabad, Pakistan.