Desperation emanation in the highly concentrated pool of unemployed graduates



It’s one thing to be unemployed in this tough economic times but its nerve wrecking when you have a Masters degree, an experience no employer looks at and a killer motivation. Talking of motivation, I have written so many letters of motivation to uncountable number of jobs I have applied to that I have become a self-appointed statement of purpose writer, with a keen eye for grammatical errors. But what is all this worth it if I do not have the said 5-10 year experience that is now a requirement in all advertised jobs?  Motivation, skills that you are confident of unleashing, the policy paper you can come up within an hour or less, research materials you flip out and present “magically”, the paper review you can write while sipping on a cup of cheap coffee, all this is not important sans the experience. Thus, I am forced to believe, out there are a group of Kenyans armed with experiences (PHD+10 years) more than I claim to have and qualities that are highlighted in all the jobs I applied to. These qualities include and not limited to, sense of humour, can lift heavy loads, easy going, outgoing and many more things that end in “going”.  Although sense of humour is considered a desirable trait by many prospective employers, how this has become one of the things to posses to “make it” is quite astounding. I am more concerned on how an individual can find humour in a scenario where you are reviewing an insecurity bulletin coming from Central African Republic or working on a post-genocide national reconstruction paper to be presented at a conference. And then I realised this particular sense of humour demanded here has more value during coffee and lunch breaks when you occasionally run into one of your colleagues as you get your daily dose of caffeine.  The main question is what if my sense of humour is self-deprecation? Do I not qualify?
Do not overstate or sugar coat! One of the many things you hear when writing your resume, but with the existence of sophisticated and highly qualified fellow countrymen I am now highly convinced that I might need an extra set of skills that stands out from the rest. These skills include fighting crime in lesser known dangerous sections of the city while wearing a hood/mask or anything that suggest that I have extra human abilities, create a Youtube video asking prospective employers out there to employ me (this has to be a musical) or saving a cat stranded on a tree, well something like that, I need to be hero, a hero with an M.A.
With my qualifications and abilities’ failure to yield anything so far, all I can say is “give me money and I will do stuff for you”. I am now considering to write things like “throw me the wolves and I shall come back leading the pack......blah blah on my leadership and marketing abilities.
Well, until the moment arrives when someone out there actually reads my resume and cover letter and finds it worthy, may the force be with me!

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