Omer Ismail began the project in 2014, shortly after graduating from university in Erbil with a degree in Environmental Sciences.
He wanted to provide places online for employers to post jobs and the community within the Kurdistan Region and Iraq to find jobs.
"I made this plan because there weren’t any platforms to find jobs for people, especially new graduates," said Ismail.
The most popular of the seven different pages and groups on Facebook is 'Find a Job in Kurdistan' with now over 110,000 members.
He began to compile data in 2016 of how many people benefited from these pages and estimates the job search pages and groups have provided employment to more than 1,000 people.
Ismail explained that he was in direct contact with more than 100 employers — international and local — who send job postings to him daily. Across the different pages and groups, more than 10 job postings are published daily.
He says that at least 70 percent of jobseekers are connected to the hiring companies.
"Other times I am recommending people for certain jobs to help them. Maybe more than 50 people per day are contacting me or my team in search of jobs," he added.
Ismail has also collected a team of around 15 members to help him run the Facebook pages and groups across Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimani, but they reach further to provide job listings across Iraq as well, including cities such as Baghdad and Mosul.
Ismail currently works full time in HSSE as well as a project engineer assistant for a local company working inside the new US Embassy compound.
Like him, the other volunteer members are working full time and taking care of their families while trying to also help their community.
"There is no plan in the government to help youth and new graduates to find jobs, no place for them to apply," Ismail said, adding that other people followed in his footsteps and started setting up their own pages to help jobseekers.
They have since networked and are now working together to best help their community, particularly the youth, in finding work.
Companies hiring range from major oil and gas companies to the medical field to local markets.
"What we do is 100 percent volunteer. Everyone in our region knows what we are doing. We are doing more than the government or other organizations to help people find jobs," Ismail said, warning jobseekers that some sites are fraudulent.
Ismail hopes to one day grow the volunteer work into an official organization so that they can better help their community by providing specific training and resume writing skills to help improve employability.
His message to those currently unemployed? "English is important. Finish university. Take different courses for self-improvement."
Ismail touched on the phenomenon of brain drain in a country where more than 60 percent of the population is under the age of 30. Many speak two or sometimes three languages fluently.
"We should make plans like other countries on how to help the youth find employment, especially after graduation,” he said. “Our youth are trying to go abroad because there are no opportunities here in Kurdistan."
"We should help each other."
