Aliya Initiative in Numbers
They come from 10 different countries and speak 8 languages. Now they want to help Israeli startups succeed in the global market.
The Israeli tech ecosystem has an inherent advantage over other international markets. In accordance with the principles of the state, Israel invites all Jews to immigrate to the country. Consequently, it has a constant influx of educated young professionals from all over the world. This talent can be leveraged to transform Israel from a Startup Nation with innovative technology to a Scaleup Nation that is a strong global business hub.
This process has already started. Due to the growth internet marketing and remote sales, a growing number of startups not only develop their technology in Israel, but also keep their sales and marketing departments here even though their target market is abroad. These companies need qualified manpower with knowledge of foreign languages to fill those roles.
At Aleph, we have decided to help bridge the gap between these immigrants (called “Olim”) and tech companies. A year ago, we started the Aliya Initiative. We invited Olim to a month long professional workshop where they learned business skills that are in high demand in startups, such as content marketing and online sales. Many growth stage companies (including SimilarWeb, Walkme, Sisense and Appsflyer) that struggle to find talent in these fields, joined our initiative. They sent their best Sales and Marketing executives to train the Olim and supplied their HR executives to help them find relevant positions. Many of the trainees found work at those companies and a few even opened their own agencies.
Two weeks ago, we launched the second workshop, which focuses on the skills needed for entry level sales positions in SaaS businesses (SDR, Inside Sales and Customer Success).
To get to know the course participants, we asked them to provide some demographic information and the answers surprised us.
We have 35 students who moved to Israel from 10 different countries and speak 8 languages (yes, Bengali is a real language, spoken by over 200 million people). They hold degrees in various fields including Law, Marketing, Electrical Engineering and even Philosophy. Most of them moved here with their families, and 50% are looking for a job.
On June 3rd, we will host a job fair for the students who finished the course and are looking to help scale up Israeli companies with sales and marketing talent. If you are planning to hire people for entry level positions in those fields, we invite you to join the job fair, get to know the Olim and hopefully even fill your open positions.
To join the job fair, email Avigail@aleph.vc.
If you can’t make it, you can always post your open positions on the Olim Job Board.
**If you are curious to learn more about sales yourself you can watch the recordings of the sessions on our Facebook page.
**We would like to thank the incredible speakers who made this initiative possible: Gilad Komorov, Joseph Fuerst, Avi Wiesenberg, Adi Azaria, Keren Halperin, Amit Bendov and Lori Brigg
