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Graduate Salaries in Kenya : A Review
Kaykay
#21 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 2:55:14 PM
Rank: New-farer

Joined: 7/14/2011
Posts: 27
Location: Mombasa
addidaskawembe wrote:
@new investor, I will give you an honest assessment out of my 18+ years experience in recruitment and management.

Most companies recruit attitude and then train the skills on the job, it’s no longer about degree’s & papers only.

Companies are looking for people who are innovative and are ready to take initiative without being reminded, people who are solution driven and can think out of the box.

Good recruiters can detect this during interviews from how your CV looks, what you have done during and after your university days.

Our current university products are mostly lazy, cannot take initiative, all they think of is earning big salaries and working for big companies simply because they have papers.

I have even seen people rushing to arm themselves with Masters e.g. MBA’s so that they can bargain higher salaries and earn more yet they cannot deliver anything.

Do your own research and you will confirm that most of our so called graduates cannot even express themselves in both oral and written, their writing skill is highly wanting with too much SMS style colloquia.


I can give you numerous examples of mid level college products I have personally recruited who have outshone the so called graduates, no wonder now days graduates are offered much less than they think they are worth.

By the way university education is supposed to equip graduates to become EMPLOYERS not EMPLOYEES.




That is the new problem now, people rushing to get 'papers'. They get the out of peer pressure and in the end after the masters degree someone doesnt know what they shall do with the cert but to negotiate for more salary instead of looking at a line of work that will help them apply what they have acquired. With the wrong motivation that results to some getting this masters then you get the problem of not only communication skills but nothing to right home about regarding their ideas or analytical skills. Theirs is at best equal to an undergraduate or even high school graduate. More should be done to ensure that the 'papers' are earned not through fees but by effort. Part of the blame is also the institutions which are now businesses instead of first being gateways to education. We have campuses of Universities everywhere with some of the institutions not being bothered about the standard of the teaching staff hence the students arent helped by their own effort or by their lecturers
Dash
#22 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 4:01:27 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 3/24/2010
Posts: 677
Location: Nairobi
I love the way people are talking about recruitment like it is such a straight forward thing in Kenya. How come no is mentioning the tribalism and nepotism involved in job searches. The godfathers and the great godfathers. There are so many people hired in so many jobs that they are not even qualified for, forget the salary but because they know a certain big shot. I think when discussing anything job related this has to be considered.
anasazi
#23 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 4:20:55 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 6/8/2007
Posts: 675
I concur @addidaskawembe, a lot of graduates in Kenya are so focused on the money that they fail to make themselves worth the money. And in this case we're not talking about more papers, but skill and attitude. Some of these Masters students ask for big salaries but leave a lot to be desired!
Form is temporary, class is permanent
Layman
#24 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 4:44:56 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 9/21/2006
Posts: 422
Location: Nairobi
...... all pipo who work or in businesses want money whether degreed or not and generally the more money you can get the better....... If you can ask for more and more and keep getting.....why not..it feels good.
Rollout
#25 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 5:32:39 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 4/26/2011
Posts: 759
... I have a friend who is a medical doctor in Kenya he graduated 4 yrs ago,he told me that the government pays him 65k a month and so he is forced to work in a number of other private hospitals inorder to make a living, I am a believer in free market principles but it doesn't make sense to pay a doctor 65k and an MP 650K it just doesn't sit well with me!

... What can we do? Kenyans should stand up for themselve, with inflation of over 18% and the government loosing money through corruption and defence of the rich and powerful, Kenyans should start a movement.
Querry
#26 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 6:19:33 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 1/22/2011
Posts: 193
Location: nairobi
It's a matter of demand and supply.....

After graduation; you do the job that you get first then build your career from that point, Be it the 10k job or the 50K job

Moving from the entry level position to the next position depends on the skills you have learnt, the opportunities, your immediate manager and luck.

After five years of experience; gaining skills and the papers that's when you stand a chance to negotiate salaries, choose options etc.

This is for an almost normal curve (without any influence from Godfathers etc)though there are people who start high, there are others who get stuck at the entry level positions and others who will move from level 1 to level four.

At the lower levels; supply is more than the demand. in the upper levels; demand is higher than the supply.


My two Zimcents.
bird_man
#27 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 6:40:24 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 11/2/2006
Posts: 1,206
Location: Nairobi
Querry....so on point.I think your remarks should end this discussion.

Guys will complain and complain but nothing will change.Another option is to start a business and pay yourself the salary you want.Start off at 200k even!
Formally employed people often live their employers' dream & forget about their own.
For Sport
#28 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 7:00:31 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 12/23/2010
Posts: 1,229
bird_man wrote:

...
Another option is to start a business and pay yourself the salary you want.Start off at 200k even!

Applause Applause Applause
people should get over that sense of entitlement - no one "owes" you...
jaggernaut
#29 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 7:16:14 PM
Rank: Elder

Joined: 10/9/2008
Posts: 5,389
Now that alot has been said here about graduates from Kenyan universities, how's the quality of those from foreign universities?
mnandii
#30 Posted : Friday, October 28, 2011 7:30:03 PM
Rank: Elder

Joined: 10/11/2006
Posts: 2,304
accelriskconsult wrote:
Gordon Gekko wrote:
In my small sphere of work, I get better value from technicians out of polytechnics, better accounts staff from CPA graduates. I have been hugely disappointed by the so called graduates seconded to me.



I think there is a confusion about what to expect from University graduates.

There is such a thing as pure book keeping for which you require a technician (KATC) rather than a professional (CPA) or a draftsman rather than an architect. A B.com accounting graduate can only be referred to as an accountant after passing a professional accounting exam and practising for not less than 2 years.

Once you move away from book keeping and start considering financial management or management accounting, try the technician and you get into trouble instantly. At the grad/CPA/ACCA/CFA level, you have to understand that you are training someone to become a manager/key decision maker in 3 - 5 yrs. If your CPA candidate started at KATC level because (s)he did not qualify to directly sit the CPA exam, chances are that all you can train them to become is junior level management- can never see the big picture and is always caught in the nitty gritty of every day life.

I think we all need to (i)define what we expect from graduates (ii) improve recruitment practices - most of the time this is where Company's, recruiters fail (iii) Be willing to train and not expect instant solutions - this is called investing

The kind of graduate we end up with says a lot about who we are as recruiters. May be, we should start by looking at ourselves and laying the blame squarely at our door steps.



Applause
LIKE.
Conventional thinkers waste time building shelters when they are unnecessary and then have no shelters when they need them the most. Socionomists do the opposite.
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