From the inaugural Chancellor’s Career Fair on August 13 – 14, 2018, the following recommendations were given by Industry Partners as some of the action points that should be implemented by the Government, Industry Players and Academia in partnership to bridge the skills-gap challenge among university graduates.

Recommendation 1: Partnership is called for; industry must inform the requirements of research capacities by Universities.

Recommendation 2: There is need to form a joint steering committee and appoint individuals from faculty to address the issue of bridging the gap. Universities should take up experiential learning, mentorship and planning of career fairs and bring on board industry and alumni to assist. Different sectors can assist in offering student trainings in different areas.

Recommendation 3: Dr. Manu Chandaria, Chairman Comcraft Group proposed that there is a clear understanding that without employers, Industry cannot work with universities. There is therefore need to create fora to discuss these issues.

Recommendation 4: Academia should be attached to the industry to have first-hand market experience for effective teaching. This should go along with a curriculum change to address new emerging areas in the industry both locally and globally.

Recommendation 5: As industry players, Universities should have representatives from industry to have a real classroom situation with students.

Recommendation 6: Industry and academic input is needed. Team up with industry and academia to deliver programmes at the university. There is also need to work on attitudes and mindsets of learners in a more organized way.

Recommendation 7: Universities need to review their curricular and embed technical skills in learning. This means that a demand driven training curriculum is needed and connections between industry and Universities should be facilitated.

The Office of Career Services is committed to realizing these recommendations through partnerships with various industry partners such as Unilever, Huawei, AfDB and the Mashav Program through the Israel Embassy.

Are you looking for a job? Then marketing yourself as a product is a MUST.

For each job posted by a potential employer, numerous candidates are interested in it. Majority are equally qualified as you.   So the question is, how do you stand out from the crowd? Below are some tips to brand yourself for the job market.

CV and Cover Letter- Your CV and cover letter are the first selling points to the potential employer. Begin these documents with positioning statements. Backup each statement you make with evidence either in hard or soft copy with explanations and elaborations of your work experience. Make your cover letter brief and on point.

Interviews – most interviewers tend to be extremely busy and may lack time to prepare for each candidate adequately, they often rely on the CV as a guide and ask questions based on the achievements and experience on your CV. As an interviewee, you must develop a story well in advance before the interview and practice to enable you articulate your examples and explanations well on how you will add value to the employer.

Online presence – make an effort to google yourself, what do you see? In this 21^st century, many recruiters take time to research candidates online. This therefore means your web presence must be positive and one should build accounts on professional sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, ZoomInfo and Facebook among others.

You could also develop content in your area of expertise for newsletters, websites or blogs. In all you do, beware of what you post on your personal website, blog or professional site.

Ongoing Career Growth Positioning – once you settle in your dream job, do not lose focus on your personal positioning. Nurture and develop your brand in everything you do because people are watching and they shall know you by your actions. Constantly learn a new skill in your area of expertise, keep growing yourself and keep track of your career goal.

In conclusion, as a job seeker, you must have a plan. Have the following questions in mind in relation to your career and job history.

1. Where have I been, where am I now and where am I headed with my career?
2. What is my career destination?
3. How do I get to my career destination?
4. How do I translate my career plan into actionable steps?
5. What changes do I need to make and how do I make them if I am not achieving my career goals?

From the University of Nairobi, Office of Career Services, we wish you nothing but the very best in your job search. Remember, positioning yourself is crucial to landing yourself your dream job.

The Office of Career Services in partnership with a team from Brighter Monday will on Friday May 22, 2020 hold a Webinar session for students from 3.00 – 5.00pm. This will be the first of many other webinars lined up a number of webinars to help students’ transition from campus to work place.

Brighter Monday is a virtual jobs listing company connecting job seekers with top employers. The company also strives to boost job seekers’ skills and profiles, provide with personalized career guidance and match job seekers with the right opportunities.

The session will focus on:

– How to open and operate a Brighter Monday Account

– Good and Bad CVs

– How to position oneself in the Job Market

– Q&A session

University of Nairobi students are highly encouraged to register on this google form link https://forms.gle/c4yteQMS4pWpM9weA  and benefit from these webinar session as they prepare to exit to the job market.

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Do not miss out the Nation Leadership Forum slated for Thursday 21st May 2020 Live on NTV at 7.30pm. The University of Nairobi Vice Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Kiama Gitahi will be talking about the “Impact of COVID -19 on Education”.

The link for this discussion is (ntv.nation.co.ke/live). Tune in for this eye-opening discussion with Wamban Kwach Ratego and Rahman Mohammed Lutfur.

The Office of Career Services is working with different industry partners to expose students to real life work experience. Some of the industry partners the Office has partnered with for Industrial Visits include Unilever Kenya Ltd, Davis and Shirtliff, Huawei Technology Company and BAT Kenya Ltd among others.

Close university-industry collaboration is a win-win situation. The industry will gain from qualified expertise with up-to-date knowledge and create a network with academia. The University will gain evidence-based knowledge and create networks with industry partners. The student will finalise on his/her degree and gain practical work experience that is tied to research.

For university-industry linkages to be fostered, then universities must invest heavily in Research and Development not forgetting capacity building of budding researchers to build a critical mass of competent and highly skilled researchers.

Mr. David Wekesa, Chief ICT Officer at the ICT Centre in charge administration of the Central College Websites on Friday May 11, 2020 hosted an online meeting for central web champions. Mr. Wekesa made a presentation in which he highlighted three major parameters that need to be taken into consideration by the web champions namely Presence, Transparency and Impact.

Mr. Wekesa noted that most Web Champions have made their websites vibrant and urged every champion to continue seeking innovative ways of creating content. Creation of backlinks, referring domains and cleaning up of Google Scholar accounts were also highlighted as major activities that each champion should engage in to increase the web ranking of the University of Nairobi.

Some of the creative recommendations given on how to harvest website content include;

1. Research from local newspapers – rewrite stories that have appeared on the local newspapers about UoN
2. Blogs on COVID-19- Rewrite stories on COVID-19 that are relevant for respective departments
3. Updates from the Corporate office can also be converted into stories
4. Feature on issues that touch on your department or field
5. Profile members in your departments through writing of inspiring stories that spread hope
6. Sell your department to stakeholders. What’s your department’s story? What are your achievements?
7. Go back to archives and share something interesting like throwback photos
8. Rewrite stories on how COVID-19 is affecting your field or department.
9. On social medial, look at posts that are linked to credible websites and are relevant to your department or the university in general and come up with articles.

The Office of Career Services will tap on these recommendations to continue generating creative content for its website.

In partnership with the Academic Division of the University of Nairobi (Admissions Office and Privately Sponsored students section), Kenya Universities and Colleges and Central Placement Services (KUCCPS) and Higher Education Loans Board (HELP) the Office of Career Services continues to support existing and incoming students for selection of the best courses to pursue in the University. The Office also sends the Students Brand Ambassadors in High School for career talks. The Office has visited Lenana School, Jamhuri High School, Mangu High School, Loreto Convent Girls Limuru, Thika High School and Nairobi Schools among others and hosted Kerugoya Girls and Kiiru Boys, among others.

High school students and those aspiring to join University are welcome to talk to us on career advice.

The Office of Career Services is working with different industry partners to expose students to real life work experience. Some of the industry partners the Office has partnered with for Industrial Visits include Unilever Kenya Ltd, Davis and Shirtliff, Huawei Technology Company and BAT Kenya Ltd among others.

The aim of the Industrial visits is to expose students to the industry work environment for them to experience practically the knowledge they learn in class. The Career Office welcomes all Colleges and students with suggestions of companies that the Career Office can reach out to for Industrial Visits.

The Office of Career Services has partnered with Fortinet PLC to offer Free Cybersecurity Training to students and staff. 

Click on this link > https://www.fortinet.com/training/cybersecurity-professionals.html?utm_source=pr&utm_campaign=2020-q2-keyword

Once you click on get started you have the option to review the courses you want to attempt. Once you are ready select public login and register to start.

Fortinet  secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet ranks number one in the most security appliances shipped worldwide and more than 450,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Fortinet is the only security leader to develop and build custom security processing unit (SPU) technology.  Fortinet FortiGuard Labs uses one of the most effective and proven artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems.  Fortinet is committed to cybersecurity innovation and excellence.