After the release of my post on students understanding a few days ago, I have decided to roll out another extension article to address Graduate Job Issues.
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After graduation, the next thing is supposed to be a paid job. This is what I call Graduate Job.
As the name “Graduate Job” implies, the job is supposed to be an extension attached to every graduate. Every graduate is supposed to be employed.
On the contrary, unemployment is taking over the system. The graduate unemployment trends have continued to prevail.
In the beginning, it was not so.
I woke up one day and began to project myself in the eyes of research. Doing this, I found out that the problem of graduate Jobs is not just a National or Continental issue. It is universal and multi-dimensional. However, it is not evenly distributed.
According to an article posted on Glassdoor
In December 2012, 13.1 million Americans were unemployed. 5.6 million of those were long-term unemployed, meaning they had been without a job for more than 27 weeks, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures. The long-term unemployed accounted for more than 40 percent of all unemployed workers.
According to AcetforAfrica:
Almost half of the 10 million graduates churned out of the over 668 universities in Africa yearly do not get job Kelvin…
NIGERIA: Premium times in may 22nd 2016 reported that:
Nigeria’s employment crisis worsened in the first quarter of 2016, with unemployment rate rising to 12.1 per cent, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, said on Friday. The bureau said in its latest Unemployment Watch report that between December 2015 and March 2016, the population of unemployed Nigerians increased by 518,000 to over 1.45 million.
The question now is, “if the foundation is destroyed, what can the students do”?
The Way Forward for Students
A. Get education with a difference
It is not all about what you score in class but what you score in life.
You can get all the ‘As‘ in class and end up a failure in life. If you think that I am against academic excellence, it means you have not seen my GPA. I wept when I read somewhere that Nigerian students have little or nothing to offer to society.
The statement above actually has some element of truth. Some days back I was busy doing some maintenance on this blog so, I asked a so-called graduate to help me write a post. He couldn’t write a 300 words article.
The next thing he said was, “Let me copy from Wikipedia”. I replied, “I don’t post copied contents”. I really felt bad. If you cannot write 300 words article then what have you been learning for the past years?
KEY POINTS
You don’t need to be a blogger or an English student to be able to write articles. I am an Engineering student yet, I write and edit my articles.
I Am not saying that I am perfect, but just understand the point that I am trying to make. You should be able to learn a skill, at least one. Do not wait for school to teach you; develop yourself.
School never taught me web design, SEO, graphic design or Programming. I took it as a burden to develop myself. What can you do? it is very difficult to find someone with skills unemployed.
Education gives you class but skill makes you a fortune. Don’t look for easy way to make money, contribute to the society.
Read: 7 Proven Ways To Overcome Procrastination
B. Be Creative:
It is an error to be static in this dynamic world. Market yourself the way companies market their products. Joshua Abuwa listed the ways to be a cool and creative young person as follows:
- Be yourself
- Wear funky clothes
- Socialize
- Eat well and exercise
- Socialize
- Use your brain
- Be effective anywhere you find yourself.
C. Learn Digital Skills
The following are digital skills you must learn:
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Data Analytics.
- Content Marketing.
- Email Marketing.
- Mobile Marketing.
- Strategy & Planning.
- Social Selling.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Graphics Design
- Content Creation
- Web Design
SCHOOL DOESN’T PREPARE YOU FOR REAL LIFE
The following are reasons school doesn’t prepare you for real life:
- The academic method is not adjusted
- Unfamiliarity with the monetary system
- Too much theory.
- Too many assignments and so on…
Develop yourself while in school. Make yourself an asset, not a handset. Remember, asset puts money into your pocket while liability takes it away. It is what you have in your head that takes you ahead.
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