Help for graduates who lack job skills

Harvard-trained coach starts a three-month Intensive Career Accelerator programme to help new university graduates acquire the practical professional know-how they need to find jobs and succeed in the workplace.

Riverside, Nairobi, there is a class in session. Freddy West, the trainer, is standing in the middle of the room with her visibly attentive students siting in a circle around her.

She is challenging them to give real life situations on how they would use the skills they had acquired. This is not your ordinary kind of class. It is the place where fresh graduates can go to learn additional skills that employers are likely to be impressed with.

Freddy, who runs this training centre known as Spire, is a graduate of Harvard University. She was so concerned about the stubborn gap between employers and fresh graduates that she decided to do something about it in her own small way.

“Our universities have emphasised theory curriculum during training. That’s where I saw the gap and decided to be a middle party between universities and employers by equipping job seekers with skills that employers are looking for,” she begins when we finally settle down for a chat.

WHAT EMPLOYERS WANT

In her view, students work hard and pay a lot of money for their university education, and even more to get master’s and PhD qualifications, “but what they are taught in class is not what the employers want.”

She adds: “Young people, even the country’s best university students, have great papers and academic training, but often lack the soft skills needed to be really effective employees.”

Freddy, thus, offers a course she refers to as “Intensive Career Accelerator.” It is a three-month programme that helps young people to find the practical professional know-how they need to succeed in the workplace.

She then works with her students to help them find employment with her employer partners.

Her firm has signed contracts with organisations that want her to train fresh job seekers in the desired skills.

The “accelerator class” also equips graduates with skills that would be useful in any organisation, such as how to make a moving presentation, how to relate with managers, and how to write a compelling CV.

BEYOND WHAT COLLEGES OFFER

She also offers a full set of core professional skills, including communication skills, customer service, sales techniques, use of the internet as a resource for research, and personal branding.

Freddy’s task is to go beyond what colleges and universities offer.

According to her, judging the worth of a graduate by the grades that they got is superficial. An employer may miss a diligent candidate if they tie all their admission criteria on grades.

She seeks fresh graduates who have integrity, character, and great work ethic — people who are timekeepers.

“Talent is not only shown in academic papers,” she stresses.

Freddy’s classes run full-time for three months —– a crash programme for a course that would otherwise run for two years, she says.

Her students are required to make a down payment. They pay the rest upon conclusion of the course and after getting a paying job.

She explains: “The fee they pay is a way of eliminating jokers and getting people to commit. One will commit to something they have paid for. If we do not charge, the classes will be flocked by people who do not take it seriously.”

SHOW COMMITMENT

Once one has graduated from the class, Spire shows them how to write good CVs and how to wow prospective employers during an interview.

However, a job is not guaranteed, especially if you do not impress Freddy.

“One must have shown commitment in class. If you never kept time, didn’t hand in homework in time, I would not pass you to a prospective employer because with that kind of behaviour, you are not ready for employment,” she warns.   

Her interaction with prospective employers and because she is an employer herself has opened her to the fact that jobs exist, only that employers often lack the right people for the positions they wish to fill.

She says: “The strange thing is that it’s not always an issue of job shortages. Employers say that they actually struggle to fill thousands of entry-level jobs each year.

“So, on one hand the average university graduate looks for work for more than 16 months, and on the other, employers can’t easily find great entry-level hires.”

For more details readers can find Ms Freddy West at www.spire.is