A graduate friend was recently interviewed for a job. He performed well and he emerged to be the only one to pass to the final session. This may sound as a good story, right? Surprisingly, during the discussion about his salary, the employer offered him half of what was on the table. I know most of my graduate friends reading this could not have taken it but he was a wise man. That is my opinion.
A careful observation of the statistics of unemployment gives a shocking reality. According to World Bank policy institute and The Kenya bureau of statistics, the youth unemployment rate is around 40% of this 70% is are of age between 15-24 and are either full time students at secondary level and the remaining majority are form four leavers. Only fragments of the 30% join institutions for tertiary education. (CIA world fact book.)
As a young generation we face challenges unlike most people alive have seen. Such situations require adaptive strategies. I am too in the unemployed gap and here is my open letter to fellow comrades.
In at least all job advertisements relevant/any experience is a requirement. Job seekers fresh from college: like my friend, do not possess expected experience. That is the reality and we have to deal with it. When we finish college we show up in the market place empty handed.
This is because our society and the educational system decided that we should sit behind a desk for almost 18 years (5 year when one enters class one sum it up with the 8-4- 4) than spend time in a real world that is likely to hire us later. So basically at age 22-25 no employer wants you. This is the age where most of us finish college and truth is no employer wants you at this age.
My own experience: when I first became of age and started to comprehend the world around me, My father ,Like most fathers used to tell me that he wanted me to be a doctor . He told me stories of a happy life from his little gospel testimonials of his friends who had made it to the field. I think he used to admire doctors. I lived my early ages in his well packaged illusion/understanding of the world and cherished every moment of it. Above all values, my urges to find any other purpose in education were suppressed and all I was supposed to do was to excel in my studies and trust the system and I could reach my destination. Now the reality has caught up with me just like my comrades. Of all the comrades I started school with, only 1% actually make it to their childhood dreams.
The rest of us are expected to make it on our own.
How do we make it on our own? That is the right question that every unemployed youth should ask. It comes down to your personal level. What values do you have that can make sense in any institution that you want to work for. Well if we don’t find a match. Let us start by considering why my friend ended up parting with half of the salary.
The only reason that a firm employs you is the fact that it will make more money with the employee than without the employee. As you get paid for the work you do it in turn makes higher returns. This means that one has to add more value to the organization than they get from it. This task however is not easy. Most graduates do not understand that businesses have costs to cover in addition to your salary: government mandates for your insurance, NSSF, health cost (NHIF) and for your training. The burden of employing you and a couple of other uncertainties in total the warrant you have baked hence half salaried as was the case with my friend. The good news is that he will start earning a full salary after 3 months of rigorous training and half salaries.
Try to give more than you take is the first and vital golden rule: Looking for post internships is a good way to start building the skills that your employers want. You can be a volunteer and work for free. This will give a better advantage than other youths sitting around waiting for a job. In order to get ahead lets be players and put aside our expectations. If you find anything /something jump on immediately. No job is so menial or beneath you.
Despite all the society has told us, it is our way of thinking that will finally lead to our undoing so let our visions be to get into the game. Let us put our salary expectations at the altar of getting job experiences. One day when you finally gained the reputation of a hustler every company will be fighting to keep you. Every company is looking for professional hustlers in different fields.
Let us learn from each job that we get: be it waiter, sales, shop keeping, supermarket attend… Learn interpersonal skills; know how business is runs, how those who succeed in that job think or even how your employer thinks.
There is a lot to learn than we learn from the professors in college. Most problem with us is that we think that in some way the kind of job we are doing at the moment will some way define who we are; this is a misconception the truth is each job is a pillar of our foundation.
Do more than dropping a CV or filling an online file: A personal visit to a firm for a follow up can be a selling point. Know as much as you can about the company and there challenges. Try to write proposal on possible way you think they can solve these problems. Selling yourself like a commodity is the key. Actually, marketing is a most crucial feature in almost all commercial acts. Meet the managers and get them to know you.
Discipline: In any job success is not hard. All you need to do is stand out. Observe simple rules and follow all you supervisor’s duties. Do anything positive that adds value to your environment that way you build reputation and professional friends that can recommend you or hook you up with your dream job.
Add value to yourself: In this digital age professional networking tools can be of great value. Sites such as linked and many other sites where jobseekers can advertise themselves through creation of profiles can be helpful in building lifelong professional networks. Take possession of the work you are doing and make it your own experience. Attach that to your personal identity. Never stop looking for your dream job while you are thinking of excelling of the current job. Once you get the next best option go for it. In that way you hone a lot of skills and experience and that places you at a better position. You will actually have learnt a lot at the end of the day when you land your dream job lesson like ethics, psychology, emotions and behavior and a lot more are sometimes come in unfriendly manner but they are valuable lessons for your professional development.
Pessimistic unemployed youths see a hopeless future. These perceptions are not true. Though barriers exist we are to overcome them by making right informed decisions. The world never works the way we were told. Let us deal with that. Let us wrestle the world around us. Our success or fail ultimately depends on our decisions.
Every time I think of how I imagined life could be. I feel that I was lied to and at some time the system has conspired against me. However, I don’t want to play the victim and when I know I have an unfinished work to do I wake up as early as 2:30 Am. Power on my PC. And tell myself may be one day I will be writing my own book. I will be a victor in a system that conspired against me. So let us get down and dirty in the game we will score someday.
Clinton Birundu is an Undergraduate Electrical and Electronic Engineering student at the Technical University of Mombasa. He is a social science enthusiast specifically Politics and Economics. He is the co-founder of Youth Alive Initiative a university student based charity organization in Mombasa.
