The Managing Director of Universal Marketing Consultancy Limited, Van-Ess Alootey, has entreated young graduates to take up volunteer jobs in preparation for remunerative job opportunities in future.
According to the marketing communication expert, although volunteer jobs do not reward promptly, they pay off over time as they prepare young graduates in terms of knowledge and experience for their dream occupations.
MrAlootey gave the advice at the plenary session of a one-day job and recruitment fair organized for young graduates by Youth Empowerment for Life in collaboration with EQWIP’s Hub, a Canadian project.
He noted that volunteer job opportunities are available in most companies but it appeared young graduates did not want to take advantage of them.
“If you volunteer in an organization and you are serious about it you are likely to gain a great deal of experience which isessential for getting employed either in the same organization or other”,he told the participants, adding that “ you willalso get connected to successful people who can be very helpful in your career life.”
The event, which forms part of Promoting Youth Representation And Civic Engagement (PYRACE) project being implemented by Youth Empowerment for Life with funding support from IBIS Ghana, brought together employers and successful entrepreneurs to interact with young graduates from the tertiary institutions.
The seasoned human resource experts drawn from reputable companies coached the young graduates on the expectations of the job market while providing them with valuable information on job opportunities in the country. This afforded the participants to know the preferred skill-set for specific jobs and learnt to develop required work attitudes as well as how to market their expertise to prospective employers.
Participants had the opportunity to meet at least two HR experts from companies of their choice as they moved from one booth to the other. Each booth had either an HR expert or successful entrepreneur conducting mock job interviews, screening of CVs and offering general recruitment advice among others before a plenary session.
The successful entrepreneurs among the coaching team shared ideas and experiences with participants, citing various scenarios and personal experiences on how to start their own businesses, exposing the participants to anticipated challenges and how to overcome them.
Lack of confidence, poor preparation for job interviews, low knowledge on the use of new media tools and low level of voluntarism were identified as some of the general weaknesses of most of the young job seekers. The young graduates were advised to work at those issues.
By staff reporter, African Eye Report