Job experience is a thorn in the flesh for the young

Deogratious Njombe, 25, a university graduate with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing management spent six months applying to more than 20 companies in and outside the country. He never got a positive reply.

“The job market for fresh graduates, particularly in business, is not great because employers value experience a lot,” he said.

Seeking better opportunities elsewhere, he left for Johannesburg, South Africa, where, once again, he faced the job experience dilemma. He returned home after three months to start a poultry project in Mbezi Beach, Dar es Salaam.

He is now earning an average income of Sh1 million per month after clinching contracts to supply broiler chickens to a local supermarket and school.

“I consider myself very fortunate to have found a soft landing in this project. You don’t get a job out of the blues straight from college,” says Deo, who has also opened a stationery shop at home.

Many Tanzanian youths remain unemployed due to lack of job experience despite a government pledge to scrap the requirement early last year.

Labour and Employment minister Gaudensia Kabaka was quoted in a local daily last April, saying the government was consulting with the private sector to find ways of abolishing the job experience requirement for fresh graduates.

“The job experience requirement has been one of the most serious obstacles that deny many youths chances to be employed upon graduating from various colleges. We are now changing the provision,” she said.

The minister said the job experience requirement should be a prerequisite for senior posts. But that pledge has practically remained a promise. University graduates still complain of discrimination based on experience even for junior posts.

A fresh graduate who holds a degree in engineering, Naima Fatmah said:

“There are ample opportunities in various segments of engineering. But I cannot apply for any of them because I don’t have any experience to suit the required position.”

Employers, both from the private sector and government agencies, habitually seek to hire experienced professionals, giving them preference over fresh graduates who lack experience.

“Job experience is still a major requirement for companies at the time of recruitment,” says Naima.

Most vacancies announced daily in newspapers invariably bar job seekers who have less than a year of experience for even junior posts like credit and human resources officers. Interestingly, some of the employers are government agencies.

A vacancy for a management executive assistant with the Unit Trust of Tanzania, an institution under the ministry of Finance, advertised in the Daily News of April 29, for example, requires the applicant to have at least 10 years of practical work experience. The work is basically secretarial, and does not require a degree for one to be considered qualified.

And a driver with the same institution is required to have at least three years experience, while a credit officer must have one year experience.

Last week, the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) also advertised posts for corporate communications manager but the applicant must have at least eight years experience. A director with the same institution must have at least 10 years experience.

According to officials statistics released recently, the unemployment rate has risen to 11.7 per cent in 2012 from 10.7 per cent in 2011. The youth are the worst affected.

The World Bank has warned that the army of unemployed youths in the country could swell by an extra 1.2 million by 2015, only two years down the line.

A significant number of those affected are fresh graduates with diplomas and degrees but no work experience to give them an edge in labour market.

“I graduated from university one year ago and am trying to find my first job,” said accounting graduate Hussein Ali. “I have lots of difficulties getting at least a phone interview.

In fact, I have my resume posted on all popular websites but there are no job interview e-mails or phone calls. Every job I am interested in needs some kind of experience. How am I supposed to start my professional career if no one would take someone without any work experience?”

Applicants find reprieve in jobs, which do not belong to their field of study. They feel it gives them something to begin with and this tends to negatively impact their career in the long term.

George Michael, a schoolteacher at a private school in Dar es Salaam, says it is wrong for anyone to specialise in one field and work in a different one.

He adds that he always wanted to pursue a career in sales and marketing but since there were no opportunities related to his field, he was forced to take up teaching.

Yet companies find it financially viable, even profitable, to recruit experienced individuals rather than take the risk of recruiting fresh graduates and spend money on their training.

Abdullah Rahim, head of marketing with Excellence Communications, says graduates do not find jobs easily because most companies require experience and professional employees to handle jobs independently as they do not need training, which saves the company time and money.

“A piece of paper, resume, cannot tell them who would do the job best when all the candidates are fresh graduates, meaning their CVs are pretty much going to look the same,” he says.

However, some companies do hire fresh graduates, regardless of their capability.[br][br]But they are offered training opportunities for jobs even those that do not relate directly to their area of study.

And, according to some employers, experience should not scare away those seeking job opportunities in companies.

Emmerson Chirwa, an executive director with Creative Logistics, says the progressive work you have done will be considered as experience.

“Having worked in a position for more than 20 years does not squarely mean you have experience of 20. How much work have you been able to progressively do in the field?” says Chirwa.

The expert says, in the private sector, profit is paramount. The employers will always want to have trained manpower, but the dynamic worker is more desirable.

“The problem is that many people do not want to ‘multisource’ skills yet the market today requires dynamic and compressed manpower that can change from time to time,” says Chirwa.

‘Multisourcing’ is an approach in which work is contracted to a number of vendors, in this case, someone who wants to build a professional profile for later employability.

His argument is that people like Bill Gates did not have decades of experience to develop sophisticated systems that are benefiting the world today.

“It was through proper nurturing of their skills and modeling them that they were able to be successful,” he added.

According Michael Neece, CEO of Interview Mastery, an online software that offers various skills for job seekers, volunteer experience often does wonders to many job seekers.

He advises job seekers that, for any one to succeed in the job hunt field, they must ensure every bit of volunteer work is considered.