Sam Khatib, Medical Engineer: "AFRY will give me more opportunities"
Sam Khatib fell in love with Sweden when spending five days here in 2015. Eventually he enrolled at KTH - the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm to study medical engineering. There, he found AFRY through his classmate and two weeks later he had an assignment.
Sam Khatib grew up in Syria surrounded by a family in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. They inspired his choice of career. In 2011, before the war, he left his home and moved to Malaysia and then to Jordan for Medical Engineering studies. He did his internship at a clinic in Germany and was convinced to visit his cousin in Sweden. During the five days in Stockholm he fell in love with the Swedish people and society. Sam explains:
– I have travelled a lot and in no other place I have felt safe from the beginning as I did here. Swedish people are very polite, and service minded although shy. That took me some time to understand.
Despite a whole lot of paperwork troubles, Sam was targeted and got conditional acceptance for his Master’s in Medical Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology. Sam started the studies while working as a store associate at Zara and Michael Kors. It turned out that the retail job was a very good way to improve his communication skills with swedes.
AFRY's reputation essential for recruiting
He first heard of AFRY from his classmate, Emma Andersson, who was part of the network for students, AFRY Future. After the graduation she got an assignment as AFRY consultant at GE Healthcare, a company Sam also was interested in. So when he spotted an opening he contacted Emma about it, but she gave him the link to AFRYs diversity coach Amir Nazari:
– Engineering expertise is, despite all, rather limited here in Sweden and there aren’t enough skilled people for all the projects and the technical development that we want to conduct here in Sweden. So, for AFRY it is an absolute necessity to look beyond Sweden’s borders and bring in people and expertise from other countries, says Amir Nazari.
Quick and efficient recruitment process
Sam told Amir about his story. Soon he was connected to Jacob Rydholm, Business Unit Manager at AFRY and in less than two weeks he got an interview at GE that immediately led to the assignment.
– Because of the impression that he gave when presenting himself and meeting with him made me convinced that he is a great person and then he should work at AFRY. He will fit great at AFRY with his education and background, says Jacob Rydholm.
The process was quick and efficient - a new experience for Sam who has been in several recruitment processes, all very slow.
– Typically, there is a telephone interview followed by an interview with a manager a couple of weeks later, and yet another interview with higher management and HR after additional weeks and so on. This is a problem for Swedish companies. Ambitious candidates lose interest and move on, Sam says and continues:
– AFRY felt right from the beginning, everyone was very welcoming and interested in who I am and what I am interested in. All in order to make a perfect match between client and consultant.
