In a country with one of the highest unemployment rates, graduates may find themselves with no room to negotiate employment and contractual conditions due to the influx of unemployed people. Therefore, graduates must demonstrate that they can apply what they’ve learnt and can learn on the job, before reaping the rewards.
Brendan Powell, director at Isilumko Activate, gives new graduates entering the workforce some helpful advice:
- Look at senior people in the company and realise that they had to invest many hours to get to where they are. It took them years of hard work to become leaders in the business. This success is achievable but, it won’t happen overnight. It is during the first years of a career that the most critical lessons are learnt. These are your character building years.
- Focus on what needs to be done in the company, then do it. Don’t worry about the title and type of work you’ve been given to do; we all want a higher rank and more money. Everyone should aspire to greater things in life. But because you hope to advance eventually, it doesn’t mean you can’t find elements of your job today that you can be passionate about. Put your head down and start producing results – this is more likely to get you noticed in the company.
- Fall in love with the job you find and do it to the best of your ability. In a recent report issued by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), South Africa is projected to have the eighth highest unemployment rate in the world, and the report forecasts that the situation is not going to change for the next five years! With no guarantee that jobs will be secured after university, graduates need to understand that a bad attitude in the workplace is simply not tolerated. There will always be other graduates waiting to be given the same opportunity, and many willing to do the same job for less pay. So, be grateful for the job that you have and remember, you can always ‘steer a moving ship’.
- Add value to your organisation. Internalise your company’s values and act in a way that is in the company’s best interest. Allow your job to become an extension of who you are.
