By Carol Musyoka,
Most of our universities are NOT preparing their fourth year classes for the recruitment. They are throwing the graduates out to the job recruitment sharks and hoping that they will sink or swim. Most fresh university graduates undergo less than pleasant interviews, and sometimes fill like giving up when they do not get job offers. Some feel they have fought the good fight, finished the race but are still struggling to keep the faith.
The solution is simple as pie: universities should link up with organisations in the public and private sector and get their human resource teams to come and run a mandatory minimum of five hours course for the final year students on how to prepare yourself for the job market. It will be a win-win scenario for both parties: for the universities they will get actual practitioners who will provide valuable education on exactly what it is they are looking for while for the organisations they will get a chance to begin to influence the kind of output that is being generated by the institutions as it will be made fit for interviewing purpose.
Based on the feedback I received, I realised that some of the recruitment train smashes occur even before the actual interview takes place.
1. A good place to begin would be your email address. For purposes of your CV please get a simple professional private email address that reflects your name and not your flavour. For instance Mary.Kerubo@yahoo.com or MKerubo@gmail.com is pretty straightforward. Missbabes@yahoo.com or peremende@gmail.com is…well nothing short of very unserious. Most email addresses are free and cost just a few minutes of your precious time.
2. Always assume that the recruiters will do a background check on you if they like what they see on your CV. The first point of entry will be to “Google” your name. It would be advisable to “Google” your own name and see what turns up in the search. It is noteworthy that the electronic age we live in ensures that even criminal or civil cases that we may have been involved in and that may have been published either in the media or in law reports will appear in a Google search.
Your Facebook profile or Twitter posts will also appear in a Google search and be under no illusion that a recruiter will not proceed to view your Facebook page or Twitter profile both of which are open to the public (unless you have put in privacy settings). So all those posts of the last all night drinking binge that you took part in will show up to a nosy recruiter doing due diligence.
This would be a good time to “untag” yourself from any photos which you have been tagged in including those where you were member number five at a strip poker game.
On that note, any abusive, foul mouthed tweets that you may have posted regarding any topical issue should be deleted particularly where you may have ranted and raved about the very organisation that you are applying to work in or its affiliate.
3. Telephone Contacts- If you have put your telephone number on your CV and are expecting recruiters to call you, for the love of God and country do not have some popular rap, genge, gospel, mugithi mix, ramogi special ringtone running off your mobile phone. Why? Well, I understand that you feel it shows your unique music tastes to which you are entitled, but it does not reflect the professional side that is required to be seen during a recruitment process.
Always assume that you are trying to woo a partner (employer) and just like in any romantic liaison, you only show your best side during the first couple of dates.
Now in the event that you do get past the due diligence as described above and get called to an interview, other than what I indicated in last week’s column,
4. Confidentiality- One should also be very careful not to reveal insider information about their current employer. So if an interviewer asks something along the lines of “What is your current employer’s strategy regarding customer acquisition in Nyeri County?” you should not have a problem telling the interviewer that it’s not in your best interests to reveal internal company information due to the confidentiality clause in your employment contract.
Yes, you are entitled to push back in an interview if you feel that the questions are infringing on confidentiality or becoming too personalised beyond the professional realm (questions along tribal or racial lines fall into this category).
Talking about the competition during an interview whether it is an organisation or an individual is highly unprofessional. But as I concluded last week, common sense good people, is not common to everyone.
Most of our universities are NOT preparing their fourth year classes for the recruitment. They are throwing the graduates out to the job recruitment sharks and hoping that they will sink or swim. Most fresh university graduates undergo less than pleasant interviews, and sometimes fill like giving up when they do not get job offers. Some feel they have fought the good fight, finished the race but are still struggling to keep the faith.
The solution is simple as pie: universities should link up with organisations in the public and private sector and get their human resource teams to come and run a mandatory minimum of five hours course for the final year students on how to prepare yourself for the job market. It will be a win-win scenario for both parties: for the universities they will get actual practitioners who will provide valuable education on exactly what it is they are looking for while for the organisations they will get a chance to begin to influence the kind of output that is being generated by the institutions as it will be made fit for interviewing purpose.
Based on the feedback I received, I realised that some of the recruitment train smashes occur even before the actual interview takes place.
1. A good place to begin would be your email address. For purposes of your CV please get a simple professional private email address that reflects your name and not your flavour. For instance Mary.Kerubo@yahoo.com or MKerubo@gmail.com is pretty straightforward. Missbabes@yahoo.com or peremende@gmail.com is…well nothing short of very unserious. Most email addresses are free and cost just a few minutes of your precious time.
2. Always assume that the recruiters will do a background check on you if they like what they see on your CV. The first point of entry will be to “Google” your name. It would be advisable to “Google” your own name and see what turns up in the search. It is noteworthy that the electronic age we live in ensures that even criminal or civil cases that we may have been involved in and that may have been published either in the media or in law reports will appear in a Google search.
Your Facebook profile or Twitter posts will also appear in a Google search and be under no illusion that a recruiter will not proceed to view your Facebook page or Twitter profile both of which are open to the public (unless you have put in privacy settings). So all those posts of the last all night drinking binge that you took part in will show up to a nosy recruiter doing due diligence.
This would be a good time to “untag” yourself from any photos which you have been tagged in including those where you were member number five at a strip poker game.
On that note, any abusive, foul mouthed tweets that you may have posted regarding any topical issue should be deleted particularly where you may have ranted and raved about the very organisation that you are applying to work in or its affiliate.
3. Telephone Contacts- If you have put your telephone number on your CV and are expecting recruiters to call you, for the love of God and country do not have some popular rap, genge, gospel, mugithi mix, ramogi special ringtone running off your mobile phone. Why? Well, I understand that you feel it shows your unique music tastes to which you are entitled, but it does not reflect the professional side that is required to be seen during a recruitment process.
Always assume that you are trying to woo a partner (employer) and just like in any romantic liaison, you only show your best side during the first couple of dates.
Now in the event that you do get past the due diligence as described above and get called to an interview, other than what I indicated in last week’s column,
4. Confidentiality- One should also be very careful not to reveal insider information about their current employer. So if an interviewer asks something along the lines of “What is your current employer’s strategy regarding customer acquisition in Nyeri County?” you should not have a problem telling the interviewer that it’s not in your best interests to reveal internal company information due to the confidentiality clause in your employment contract.
Yes, you are entitled to push back in an interview if you feel that the questions are infringing on confidentiality or becoming too personalised beyond the professional realm (questions along tribal or racial lines fall into this category).
Talking about the competition during an interview whether it is an organisation or an individual is highly unprofessional. But as I concluded last week, common sense good people, is not common to everyone.
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