Five or six years ago, finding a job in Kenya must have been a daunting task even for the very talented brains. Job seekers had to subject themselves to tortuous long walks literally from one office to the next looking for a vacancy that could be relevant to their qualifications.
In fact, companies got so bothered by those streaming in looking for jobs that they would write very large notices written, "HAKUNA KAZI" and pin them to the gates.
Not to doubt their grammar, they would also add an exclamation mark, or two to the phrase.
But job seekers got smart and acquired selective blindness syndrome. They most certainly chose what to see, and the notices were not among what they chose to see. They would still just walk in. Unperturbed. Still willing to try a chance, leaving potential employers raging with fury. I can imagine they would ask questions like, "Are you blind? Didn't you see the notice at the gate that there are no jobs?". And the potential employee would fake a very genuine looking surprised face.
With time, job seekers got so smart and upgraded their excuses for ignoring the notices. Business owners had to act tougher to keep them away as they considered them bothers. (It is important to note that some of those seeking employment were even better at their jobs than those who were trying to keep them away). Business owners gave strict instructions to their security personnel not to allow the young men and women looking for jobs into their premises. Still some unrelenting individuals managed to circumvent such orders by having a horde of intelligent excuses for the gate guys.
On the other hand, when positions fell vacant in the organizations, advertising for qualified staff was a challenge for the businesses and turnouts done interviews were anything but commendable.
Various businesses ended up hiring unqualified staff who almost always ended up hurting the business operations and advertising vacant positions in the newspapers, TV or radio was an expensive venture only left to the bigger companies and national NGO's.
It got so inconvenient for the smaller companies that they resorted to hiring close relatives and friends whether qualified or not as they may have believed that they could trust them.
Enter the age of Information Technology and the internet.
The little inconvenient game between employers and employees involving notices of "HAKUNA KAZI" has or should literally fly out of the window in this decade.
Acquisition of highly qualified and competitive staff is also no longer reserved for the large businesses, multinationals and NGO's. The field is leveling out and every business player has a fair chance at staffing and employment.
In this decade, finding jobs in Kenya has been made much easier, simpler and as a matter of fact, convenient for both the employers and employees. With the rise of web logs or blogs, websites, email and SMS notification services among other creative ventures, you can actually advertise a job vacancy you have at your business with little if not zero charge. Similarly, job seekers can view and respond to vacancy announcements with astonishing results.
I was once asked by one of my clients to publicized a vacancy. The response was not anything I had anticipated. Within the first 20 minutes, they had received over 50 calls from eager job seekers asking for directions on how to apply. One would have been forgiven for thinking that their offices were the head quarters for Safaricom customer care.
I went back a week later to witness the outcome for the interview and gauge effectiveness of posting job vacancies on the web. Over 20 interviewees showing up for the process. This may not seem like a large number to you but to them, it was such a big deal considering they have only 14 employees and it is not a large company both in operations and clientele base.
They hired just two, and they have always been grateful that they managed to find better employees than they had ever hoped for. I suppose they may have been spoilt for choice and had a very hard time selecting a suitable candidate after the interviews.
How is my little story in the above paragraphs of importance to you? I mean, what do you care?
Well, it is a bit of a case study, if I may choose to call it so. The business got managed to reach quality viable applicants in a very short time. And the applicants, although not all were hired, got wind of the vacancy through the web.
Meaning that the web is the new frontier for searching and applying for vacancies. It is the new interface for interaction between employers and employees for quality recruitment.
How would you use the web to find job vacancies and apply for them in Kenya?
First, if you know anything about blogs and websites, it is that they are found on the internet. Therefore to access them, you will need to have access to the internet.
But thank God there are so many affordable smartphones, tablets and laptops out there. You could just grab one and with a good internet service provider, you could be browsing the web first thing every morning, or last thing every evening, or whichever may suit you, searching and applying for job vacancies.
You may not even need that smartphone if you cannot afford it. There are cyber cafes all over the country and unless you come from some extremely remote arid or budget corner of Kenya, in which case you wouldn't be reading this, you must happen to be within a kilometer of a cyber cafe. The last time I checked, (That's got to be last week Saturday), most cybers around the country still charged 50 cents a minute for browsing the web and most connection speeds were reliably convenient. So you could use the computers at cyber cafes to help you in your job hunting activities.
To have the better edge, you can even subscribe to job updates from various websites and blogs such as the Brighter Monday website which offers email subscriptions. You could subscribe to SMS alerts, though most of these services charge exorbitant service rates for job seekers yet still remain largely irrelevant in the alerts they may send you.
Those looking for jobs may create bookmarks on their browsers for websites and blogs posting job vacancies so they do not forget to check them every time.
Submitting your CV to job sites such as Jobmail and Brighter Monday can also open up new employment opportunities for you.
Lastly and most ignored, potential employers these days are starting to get the idea that they are extremely tech-savvy. I don't know who gave them the idea that they could know everything about employees and potential employees from a Google or Facebook. They read those crazy posts on your Facebook wall, Twitter and wherever else you choose to attach your name and begin to profile you, and your personality. They really don't believe that you are just having fun. Heck, some of them don't even have an idea of what you mean by "fun".
So clean up those profiles keeping them authentic and portraying an attractive outlook. A little common sense tells me that employers are more likely to hire a job seeker with a credible profile as opposed to one with weed leaves all over Facebook and ganja stems all over Twitter.
Another thing, you shouldn't delete your social profiles just because some old hag will be spying your activity at every job application you make. That profile may still be the only game changing first impression you so much need.
If you are going to look for a job online know that employers also go online to look for potential members of their staff. Let the first impression employers have whether online or offline be to your advantage.
How do the employers and businesses benefit from listing job vacancies on the web?
The web presents an unprecedented publicity opportunity for businesses to advertise not only job vacancies, but tenders, products and their services.
The job seeking generation of this decade heavily use and literally live on the web relying on it for even such insignificant activities as ranting about the fly that was in their soup the previous night.
Advertising your job vacancies on the web presents your business before much more potential applicants who are already using the web. This has an undeniable ability to attract more competitive employees. Such web advertising therefore makes it easier to hire qualified experts whether on permanent basis or to handle particular projects within given time frames. Many job listing services will also list vacancies with very little if not zero charge. So you are able to fill a position competitively without straining your organization's budget.
Until next time. Have a good week.
By Okaka Alfred.
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