Okaz

I do not know whether the company that advertised a job requiring prospective applicants to be proficient in 11 languages was doing so as a joke or was serious. However, I believe that the person who published the advert on the Human Resource Development Fund (HADAF) website should be made to undergo a medical examination.

Bravery alone is not sufficient to explain this strange condition that is shameful and absurd. As a result, the authorities have launched an investigation into the incident and questioned officials of the company that published the controversial advertisement.

We wish the investigating agency would tell us the number of languages being spoken and written fluently by the company’s owner and staff. The required languages include Japanese, Chinese, French, Somali, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Italian, Albanian and Persian.

This is a crippling condition required by an organization that is looking for excuses not to employ Saudis and to justify their applications for recruitment visas. Companies such as this also set other difficult conditions, such as the need to have many years of experience. They know that newly graduated Saudis will be automatically disqualified.

Companies can get rid of the condition of experience if they provide young Saudi applicants with necessary training once they have been selected. These companies are looking for ordinary employees and workers, not experts from NASA and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The authorities should not only investigate this company but also other companies that set similar difficult conditions in order to deter Saudi applicants and justify their applications for recruitment visas.