Europe and US are in recession. It's an awful market for jobseekers. And worse still in Kenya, where official unemployment rates are 40%, where there's no formal social security, so if you have no job you - your family - have no income at all.
As a careers advisor I see some Kenyan jobseekers each month for free. Hear their stories: the sparky, feisty young woman with KCSE and a diploma with good IT skills, great communication skills, good exam results. A good candidate, whose education was paid for by her mum's former employer, who over the last six years has had a total of two months' paid work, on various temporary call centre contracts working for global brands you'd have heard of, - and then been retrenched as the passing demand passes. She changed direction, set up a cafe in the slum, managed to get contracts to supply restaurants with her products. But then had to sell her one asset, her fridge, to tide the family over in their third year without any income at all.
Or the man in his late twenties, a mechanic, whom I interviewed for my dissertation. He'd studied car mechanics on a Kenyan youth employment scheme some ten years ago. Had left the scheme with a qualification, but not a qualification at a high enough level to get a job, as it now becomes clear. When I interviewed him he had spent literally ten years, trudging daily, on foot, from garage to garage all over Nairobi, presenting his qualifications, trying to bypass gatekeepers, seeking to speak with employers, trying to get a job. He'd heard the feedback that his level two qualification wasn't at a high enough level to get work. Quoted it to me. But what can he do? He can't afford to return to college to build on it. He's now got so much invested in his search, he can't change direction now, though I fear, in his heart of hearts, he realises this might be what is needed.
Or the conversations with my expat mates with adult children. The family home is in Kenya, for now. So their adult children, school leavers, newly graduated, not so newly graduated, have no free family base in UK while they seek work. It's harder to give supportive conversations, informal support, or the occasional bracing kick over skype. And for the adult children who opt to be with the family for a while, its harder still to break into the Kenyan job market - not where they grew up or where they have contacts or school friends - but where they'll need to demonstrate they are better than Kenyan applicants to get a role to get a work permit.
So what can the rest of us do to help those seeking work at times of mass unemployment?
It's easy to get isolated when you're seeking work. It's easy to lose touch with who you are, with your strengths, with the anecdotes your friends tell about you, with the experiences that make you, you at your best. It's tempting to hide away under the duvet, feeling unacceptable.
Kenyan jobseekers tend to only have contact with other jobseekers. Just as expat partners seeking work tend to have contact with the other jobseeking mums on the playground, rather than with those who've spun off into the world of smart suits and someone else doing your school pickup. But in jobseeking - as in Richard Wiseman's fascinating research on the tactics used by those who assess themselves as lucky, The Luck Factor, - broadbased contacts matter. The people who assess themselves as luckiest are those who would, for example, go to a party, and rather than huddling close to the friends they already knew, cast themselves onto the open ocean, make a commitment that they today will speak to each person wearing red.
So encouraging jobseekers to identify what - beyond a job - and towards a job - would help comes first. And then helping people to network, to seek information interviews, to see whether someone in employment might let them shadow them for the day, mentor them - all this helps. Who do you know through your church, your siblings friends, your parents colleagues, your community, your high school, professional body? And who do they know in turn? And that we offer information interviews - 40 minutes of our time - to those who'd welcome it. 'Redescendre l'ascensceur' the French call it. 'To send the lift back down behind you', so others may follow in your footsteps.
The point of wider contacts isn't a clearcut route to a job, - you know me, you'll give me a job. It's about information gathering. Which are the key tasks in your role? How do you go about them? Which are the skills your organisation is seeking at the moment? What would you say is the best way to gain them? Might you be willing to refer me on to another of your contacts in this field for a potential information interview? Yes and seeking to leave a professional impression and your contact details, lest the contact come across a job you might fit. But it's building a body of professional knowledge and a base of contacts who might be on the lookout for opportunities to which you could add value.
Creating slices of a job helps too. Identifying that niggling bit of work you're too busy or too cackhanded to do, as actually a project, and writing up what it could involve, the skills needed, the possible benefits, - and advertising it. Just getting out of the house to have contacts with others can help when you feel you've been knocking on doors for two years, in vain. But ideally, it'll be offering more - a chance to learn something, to gain different experience, contacts with others, a wage. Creating sliproads into mainstream employment, a day's ironing each week which might lead to some babysitting and a reference; help taking monthly payment to the Kenya Revenue Authority, which could lead to helping out with the accounts, and work as a financial assistant.
Security is one of the key issues on anyone's mind when employing in Kenya. Even my accountant won't take on new clients without an introduction from a former client. Yes people have ID, but if someone did a runner it would be nigh on impossible to find them again in this land without integrated databases. So good references from employers willing to give their own details, to stand surity with their own reputation as it were, matter inordinately. And that's a big barrier for many.
Giving people new opportunities helps. I heard of one expat mum, knowing they were to be leaving in six months, who bought her housekeeper a copy of Jamie Oliver. And whose family ate a different Jamie Oliver recipe each evening for the next six months, so that, by the time of their departure they could write a glowing reference for their housekeeper/cook, 'who can cook all the recipes in Jamie Oliver' and comes with her own cookbook. But its hard. Our gardener/handyman said as we arrived, licking his lips as he looked at our dent-free car.
'I've got a driving licence you know. Just haven't had much practice. I could drive you.'
A bit like letting your seventeen year old loose in your car, rather in the dual control car of the driving instructor, we decided to pass on that one. Thank you.
Access to cash is a major hurdle here in Kenya. Little bits can make a massive difference. A friend of ours gave a local newspaper seller (average daily earnings 250 KSh, around £1.50) a loan to buy a bike. He can deliver papers - maybe the sole delivery person in Nairobi - has massively expanded what he can charge and his potential buyers. And helping people set up bank accounts. Equity Bank has a bank account where you can save as little as 10 KSh, incur charges only when you do something.
Marking 'distance travelled' is another big issue. Having a job is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren't. You can be putting in marvellous applications, gaining fantastic experience, networking like crazy, doing everything right, hard. But still not finding a job with a paycheque. So it matters that those around you help you see the distance you've travelled towards a job. The steps, big and small, the buying signals - even if they ultimately came to nothing. That others make concrete the successes which for the jobseeker seem so dwarfed by the deluge of rejection letters, or the disheartening silence of no rejection letter at all.
And finally helping people think what they offer in the labour market, and who would value this - and the rest of who they are. Helping people think how they can reassure employers that this is a low-risk venture to hire them. Some Kenyan jobseekers I've worked with seemed to see a job as something static, like a chair, that you occupy, rather than something dynamic, a need that you fill, which changes, where the requirements on you change too. Not something where you make a difference, solve problems. More something which is bestowed on you, like blonde hair or freckles. And while that could be the reality for some in the Kenyan job market, it doesn't really help if you're a normal jobseeker, and an uncle from your village isn't the chief executive of a major parastatal.
While knowing you're not alone doesn't help the key plight of the Kenyan jobseeker pounding the streets, I think it matters that the rest of us come out where we can. I've been made redundant. Sought work in 1980s South Wales when the only posts advertised in the Jobclub were as topless waitresses. Had periods between jobs. Been despairing that I'd ever get back to interesting work after having kids. And have been really grateful for the help I've received on the way. What goes around comes around. Over to you.
As a careers advisor I see some Kenyan jobseekers each month for free. Hear their stories: the sparky, feisty young woman with KCSE and a diploma with good IT skills, great communication skills, good exam results. A good candidate, whose education was paid for by her mum's former employer, who over the last six years has had a total of two months' paid work, on various temporary call centre contracts working for global brands you'd have heard of, - and then been retrenched as the passing demand passes. She changed direction, set up a cafe in the slum, managed to get contracts to supply restaurants with her products. But then had to sell her one asset, her fridge, to tide the family over in their third year without any income at all.
Or the man in his late twenties, a mechanic, whom I interviewed for my dissertation. He'd studied car mechanics on a Kenyan youth employment scheme some ten years ago. Had left the scheme with a qualification, but not a qualification at a high enough level to get a job, as it now becomes clear. When I interviewed him he had spent literally ten years, trudging daily, on foot, from garage to garage all over Nairobi, presenting his qualifications, trying to bypass gatekeepers, seeking to speak with employers, trying to get a job. He'd heard the feedback that his level two qualification wasn't at a high enough level to get work. Quoted it to me. But what can he do? He can't afford to return to college to build on it. He's now got so much invested in his search, he can't change direction now, though I fear, in his heart of hearts, he realises this might be what is needed.
Or the conversations with my expat mates with adult children. The family home is in Kenya, for now. So their adult children, school leavers, newly graduated, not so newly graduated, have no free family base in UK while they seek work. It's harder to give supportive conversations, informal support, or the occasional bracing kick over skype. And for the adult children who opt to be with the family for a while, its harder still to break into the Kenyan job market - not where they grew up or where they have contacts or school friends - but where they'll need to demonstrate they are better than Kenyan applicants to get a role to get a work permit.
So what can the rest of us do to help those seeking work at times of mass unemployment?
It's easy to get isolated when you're seeking work. It's easy to lose touch with who you are, with your strengths, with the anecdotes your friends tell about you, with the experiences that make you, you at your best. It's tempting to hide away under the duvet, feeling unacceptable.
Kenyan jobseekers tend to only have contact with other jobseekers. Just as expat partners seeking work tend to have contact with the other jobseeking mums on the playground, rather than with those who've spun off into the world of smart suits and someone else doing your school pickup. But in jobseeking - as in Richard Wiseman's fascinating research on the tactics used by those who assess themselves as lucky, The Luck Factor, - broadbased contacts matter. The people who assess themselves as luckiest are those who would, for example, go to a party, and rather than huddling close to the friends they already knew, cast themselves onto the open ocean, make a commitment that they today will speak to each person wearing red.
So encouraging jobseekers to identify what - beyond a job - and towards a job - would help comes first. And then helping people to network, to seek information interviews, to see whether someone in employment might let them shadow them for the day, mentor them - all this helps. Who do you know through your church, your siblings friends, your parents colleagues, your community, your high school, professional body? And who do they know in turn? And that we offer information interviews - 40 minutes of our time - to those who'd welcome it. 'Redescendre l'ascensceur' the French call it. 'To send the lift back down behind you', so others may follow in your footsteps.
The point of wider contacts isn't a clearcut route to a job, - you know me, you'll give me a job. It's about information gathering. Which are the key tasks in your role? How do you go about them? Which are the skills your organisation is seeking at the moment? What would you say is the best way to gain them? Might you be willing to refer me on to another of your contacts in this field for a potential information interview? Yes and seeking to leave a professional impression and your contact details, lest the contact come across a job you might fit. But it's building a body of professional knowledge and a base of contacts who might be on the lookout for opportunities to which you could add value.
Creating slices of a job helps too. Identifying that niggling bit of work you're too busy or too cackhanded to do, as actually a project, and writing up what it could involve, the skills needed, the possible benefits, - and advertising it. Just getting out of the house to have contacts with others can help when you feel you've been knocking on doors for two years, in vain. But ideally, it'll be offering more - a chance to learn something, to gain different experience, contacts with others, a wage. Creating sliproads into mainstream employment, a day's ironing each week which might lead to some babysitting and a reference; help taking monthly payment to the Kenya Revenue Authority, which could lead to helping out with the accounts, and work as a financial assistant.
Security is one of the key issues on anyone's mind when employing in Kenya. Even my accountant won't take on new clients without an introduction from a former client. Yes people have ID, but if someone did a runner it would be nigh on impossible to find them again in this land without integrated databases. So good references from employers willing to give their own details, to stand surity with their own reputation as it were, matter inordinately. And that's a big barrier for many.
Giving people new opportunities helps. I heard of one expat mum, knowing they were to be leaving in six months, who bought her housekeeper a copy of Jamie Oliver. And whose family ate a different Jamie Oliver recipe each evening for the next six months, so that, by the time of their departure they could write a glowing reference for their housekeeper/cook, 'who can cook all the recipes in Jamie Oliver' and comes with her own cookbook. But its hard. Our gardener/handyman said as we arrived, licking his lips as he looked at our dent-free car.
'I've got a driving licence you know. Just haven't had much practice. I could drive you.'
A bit like letting your seventeen year old loose in your car, rather in the dual control car of the driving instructor, we decided to pass on that one. Thank you.
Access to cash is a major hurdle here in Kenya. Little bits can make a massive difference. A friend of ours gave a local newspaper seller (average daily earnings 250 KSh, around £1.50) a loan to buy a bike. He can deliver papers - maybe the sole delivery person in Nairobi - has massively expanded what he can charge and his potential buyers. And helping people set up bank accounts. Equity Bank has a bank account where you can save as little as 10 KSh, incur charges only when you do something.
Marking 'distance travelled' is another big issue. Having a job is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren't. You can be putting in marvellous applications, gaining fantastic experience, networking like crazy, doing everything right, hard. But still not finding a job with a paycheque. So it matters that those around you help you see the distance you've travelled towards a job. The steps, big and small, the buying signals - even if they ultimately came to nothing. That others make concrete the successes which for the jobseeker seem so dwarfed by the deluge of rejection letters, or the disheartening silence of no rejection letter at all.
And finally helping people think what they offer in the labour market, and who would value this - and the rest of who they are. Helping people think how they can reassure employers that this is a low-risk venture to hire them. Some Kenyan jobseekers I've worked with seemed to see a job as something static, like a chair, that you occupy, rather than something dynamic, a need that you fill, which changes, where the requirements on you change too. Not something where you make a difference, solve problems. More something which is bestowed on you, like blonde hair or freckles. And while that could be the reality for some in the Kenyan job market, it doesn't really help if you're a normal jobseeker, and an uncle from your village isn't the chief executive of a major parastatal.
While knowing you're not alone doesn't help the key plight of the Kenyan jobseeker pounding the streets, I think it matters that the rest of us come out where we can. I've been made redundant. Sought work in 1980s South Wales when the only posts advertised in the Jobclub were as topless waitresses. Had periods between jobs. Been despairing that I'd ever get back to interesting work after having kids. And have been really grateful for the help I've received on the way. What goes around comes around. Over to you.
You brought up good points for job seekers. I can't imagine looking for work for 10 years like that mechanic and yet get up every day to continue to do so. I do think these days the more you are out and about making contact with others, the more likely you will get hired like you also discussed. My husband is job seeking, he chose to quit his job to move closer to help his aging parents out. He is finding it very difficult to find something, unfortunately his age of 58 is probably a hindrance to him. One thing we have resolved to do is to go to any gathering we are invited to, just in case, to make contacts because you just never know.....
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