May be you want to finish campus, get a job and save part of the salary to get some capital so that you can venture into business. Or perhaps you want to work with the best companies in the world so that you can scale up your skills and boost your exposure.
Whichever the case, here are some basic life rules that you need to break if you want to find your dream job.
#RULE 1: Waiting till you graduate to apply for jobs
Don’t wait till you’re thrown out of your hostel room in school to start applying for a job. Start your job search early using your provisional results transcript.
UoN graduates at a past graduation ceremony
Going by the Kenyan academic calendar, most students graduate starting the month of May onwards. If we use basic math rules here, we can say that the probability of getting your CV read by the human resource manager is higher during the months of February to April than from May to December.
Why? You might want to ask…with more and more graduates joining the “job-search caravan”, it only means that more CVs are being sent out per job post. The more applicants there are per job post, the slimmer your chances of being noticed by the employers!
#Rule 2: Underestimating the power of Social Media
Don’t take social media for granted. If you think this is a cliché, kindly take a minute and have a look at this conversation between Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore and an aspiring employee on Twitter.
Tweet gone wrong.
As you can see, this hopeful “graduate” ended up missing out on a lifetime chance to work for one of the best companies in East Africa – through social media I should add. So, how can you use the power of social media positively? Follow these 4 job tips:
Twitter: Follow businesses and individuals you are interested in, don’t be afraid to tag them in some of your tweets occasionally.
Facebook: Populate the “About” section with your skill and education portfolio to optimize your professional appeal.
LinkedIn: Connect to people who have careers you are interested in, and search who have a degree or diploma that is similar or related to what your pursued in school. Try to get recommendations and endorsements from friends.
Your Phone: Remove that weird ring-back tone you have set-up in your tone. Surely, no one can take you seriously if your ring-back tone is FUNDAMENTOZ song…think about it.
#Rule 3: Being ashamed of telling people that you’re looking for a job
Long gone are the days when you would rely on the newspaper to access job vacancy announcements. Nowadays, most companies prefer to hire on a referral basis. Some companies actually approach some of their best employees requesting them to refer the right people for various jobs.
Be connected to the right people in order to find a job quick
Woe unto you if you are lone-ranger. Our advice: Join the right groups in school, join organizations such as Aisec, inculcate the good habit of attending public career fairs etcetera. In other words, don’t leave any stone unturned in your job search efforts.
#Rule 4: Expecting an insanely huge salary
As a graduate and a person who doesn’t have lots of skills hands-on skills, it would be rather unrealistic to hope to find a job that pays you a 6 figure salary…unless you’re veeery lucky! Most jobs that you’ll come across might be offering a median starting gross salary in the range of Ksh30,000 and Ksh50,000.
Of course, you could be expecting better pay for your skills, but kindly be ready to start small. As the old saying goes “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.”
#Rule 5: Using one CV to apply for multiple job openings
Each time Kuza Biashara advertises job vacancies, we receive numerous CVs. We recently placed an ad on one of the local job search sites and believe you me, we were able to collect more than 1,000 CVs in less than 48 hours! But the large number of CVs was not actually the problem.
Keep that boring CV to yourself
Poorly written, generic, flat CVs comprised 90% of what we received. Since we don’t want you to repeat the same mistakes you might have made when applying for a previous job post, we would like to encourage you to follow these quick CV writing tips:
- Your CV (as a fresh graduate) should not exceed 1 page on an A4 sized piece of paper. At most, take it to 1 and a half pages.
- Don’t use one CV to apply for multiple job openings. Make a point of writing a unique resume for each and every application made.
- Research about the employer (organization, company or individual) and use your CV to intelligently show that you are aware about the business of the company.
- Put the skills that matter to the potential employer first. For example if you are applying to work as a customer care rep in a telecommunication firm make sure you place special emphasis on your “Good communication skills”, “IT skills” etcetera. Provide links to some of your current/past work/achievements as well.
- Place minimal emphasis on: Your Gender, Religion, Village Background, Kindergarten education, KCPE grades and your many roles as a class prefect – unless the employer insists on you providing such details.
There are many more tips about CV writing that are there for you to learn. You can learn more tips from here.
#Rule 6: Looking for a job to please your village-mates or relatives
Most of us come out of campus dreaming of working for one of those “BIG” companies. Perhaps you want your village mates to respect you because you have landed a job in Nairobi. Well, while working for a big company based in Nairobi may be a good idea, finding a job in one such organization might be a far-fetched dream (in 90% of the cases).
Don’t give in to the pressure of your village-mates
Small and Medium Enterprises provide employment for 90% of the Kenyan workforce, only 10% gets to work for the Government and multinational companies. It therefore means that your probability of securing employment when looking for an SME job is 9 times higher than when seeking government or multinational company jobs.
Looking for work in an SME organization will bolster your chances of landing your first job.
…and lastly…
As usual we would like to hear from you. What has been your experience looking for a job in your country? Talk to us via the comment box, Facebook, or our newly revamped Google+ page.
You might find this video from JKUAT University useful to your research
