I studied English Literature in Saudi Arabia and later pursued my master’s degree in Curriculum & Instruction in Boston. You may be wondering how I ended up working in a multinational computer technology corporate. This is my story.
After my journey in the United States, I came back to my hometown in Saudi Arabia at a critical time, where a lot of economic changes were happening. There was a shortage in jobs. Naturally, I took it as a challenge to find projects to work on and looked for part-time jobs. I was ready to do anything to be back in business.
I was able to land a job as a cashier at a local concept store where I discovered my passion. Being at the center of the shop, I was able to learn who our customers were, their needs, when the traffic was, and an overview into how the logistics worked. In two months, I was handling the store’s social media account – creating content for over 50K followers daily. Soon after, I was in charge of building the website. I contacted existing and potential customers, collected, and managed inventory.
Little did I know that working on the backend of a website was a segue to be nominated for the GenO training program here at Oracle. I was instantly drawn to Oracle, and the work it was doing. Getting prepared for the several interviews to come, through my research, I learned that the solutions offered by Oracle were helping today’s businesses adapt and innovate through their Oracle journey. Oracle is focused on their customers’ success and wants to truly set them up for success. The message spoke to me. I’ve seen many start-up businesses fail because of back-end challenges, not knowing when or where to seek help. Their business would sometimes crumble because they can’t focus on innovation and their vision. After several interviews and presentations, I was enrolled.
A complete training course covered all aspects such as collaboration, being agile, communicating for impact, strategies to make a sound judgement in a timely manner, and business drivers. This is a small drop of the ocean of the things we covered.
The facilitators and instructors from our training academy used what we call in education the Montessori method. In simpler words, the training is done by hands-on learning, self-directed activities, asking questions, and collaborative work practiced in a safe, supportive environment.
Like any beginner in a vast corporate, I was intimidated by the experience everyone around me brought to the table. However, I was surprised by the amount of support I received from both my GenO team, and my line of business team I would eventually work with. Any question was welcomed, whether big or small.
One of the things that stood out to me most was the collaborative work achieved among colleagues. And with the help of Oracle’s many resources available, you become motivated to achieve more. Not only are we supported professionally, but we are also being supported mentally and physically to ensure we are present in what we do. Our weekly well-being sessions add value to our day-to-day tasks. It’s been made easy to work remotely because of how everything was tailored at your service to work in the safety of your home. My puppies are certainly happy to have me around most of the day.
One of the things I look forward to every week are the LinkedIn Learning courses planned by the GenO program team. Every course allows us to reflect and grow in a way that is needed for our next challenge. There is always guidance in honing our skills to best fit and serve our clients and customers in the best way possible. This and having a great team from around the EMEA region with different cultural backgrounds to widen our horizons. I’ve never had connections this diverse until today. Oracle is truly an inclusive community for everyone. It doesn’t care what background you come from, as long as you bring good attitude towards life and ready to learn, you are in.
Oracle allowed me to bridge the gap between my professional background and my educational background, bringing Sales and Curriculum Instruction together in one role. There is a constant challenge that pushes us to become a better version of ourselves every day.
I am not only grateful to be part of this program for obvious reasons, but I am also grateful that it came at a time where we are seeing our country and many others being devoted and invested to digital transformation. Our vision 2030 has been in the works for the past few years, and in just those few years we saw real impact in both organizations and customer satisfaction.
Being in this supportive environment with the right guidance will unlock endless opportunities to develop professionally and therefore ensure we are, just like our customers, set up for success.