Building a Career as a Youth

My journey started way back in school at primary and secondary level whereby taking different leadership roles and after finishing school all that I desired for to pursue further education and build a career of choice was faced with a lot of uncertainty.

To summarize the long story, I found myself mostly volunteering, coaching and training kids in soccer and as a peer educator in Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) and later became an ICT trainer and training coordinator in NairoBits trust.

Below are eleven areas I faced towards building a career as a young person dating back from the year 2000. 

1. Not knowing what I wanted to do.
2.  A lot of copy and paste. 
3. No career mentors in my network. 
4. The future was blurry whereby juggling more than one thing randomly. 
5. No strategy for self discovery and talent utilization. 
6. Peer pressure based on career prospects. 
7. No guidance on how to work with money. 
8. Not knowing what career paths to take. 
9. Not knowing my key areas of strengths and areas of improvement. 
10. Lack of awareness on networking, personal branding and self marketing, 
11. Lack of opportunity or knowledge and skills to spot opportunities. 

Currently I'm a youth advocate, trainer, photographer, social entrepreneur, graphic designer and coach. My vision is to train more than 500 youth per year in 21st century skills to address the challenges that youth face towards employability, personal branding and career development. I offer training in different areas for example in web design, graphic design, trans-formative leadership, blogging, life skill, photography, and personal branding, communication, social media, community engagement, event management, creative entrepreneurship, financial literacy and internet research. 

My acquired experiences of 20 years counts back from working with NairoBits in Kenya, ZanziBits in Zanzibar, KampaBits in Uganda and Kilimanjaro Film Institute in Arusha. I’m a proud alumni of Amani institute (Kenya), NairoBits (Kenya), Do school (Germany) and MYSA (Kenya). All this platforms have played a pivotal role in choosing and building my current career pathways as a youth advocate, social media expert, change maker, social entrepreneur and photographer.

The Youth Situation 

Today majority young people face similar experiences of what I faced 20 years back and I can attest that there are many things that you will always learn beyond the confines of your classroom. I see the same patterns as explained above repeating in many young people’s life especially in a society where parents are becoming very busy, increase in youth unemployment and personal mentors a rare arrangement.

The list of challenges of what the youth face keeps on growing top on the list being unemployment, youth bulge, under employment, poverty just to mention but a few.   It is saddening that even with the best education there are no jobs guaranteed for anyone unless otherwise.

We need a mind shift on what education should provide to us especially in creating an environment where we can build careers as employers, investors, problem solvers, job creators, innovators, influencers etc.

It’s very possible to create job opportunities for youths for example in supporting the creative economy, establishing a vibrant sports economy, collaboration between public and private sector while also diversifying in areas that aren’t considered white collar jobs like in Agri-business and talent utilization. Below are tips you can take within your career pathways;

Four areas for Self Marketing 

1. Personal Branding – This is a process of knowing self, building a reputation, Known for something and a strategic approach towards build relationships of value addition in story of self and others. 
2. Leading Self – A more focused journey of living as per set values, goal driven, self discovery, lifelong learning. Loving what you do and doing what your love. 
3. Networking – Building relationships of values towards personal and career prospects. 
4.  Values – Building a strong culture and guiding principle on where you are, what you to do, defined peer groups, character, personality, behavior and habits that also adds to your personal brand. 

There are four types of interviews you should prepare for, namely;

1. One on one - You can meet either in the office or out of office like in cafeteria with the prospective employer. 
2. Telephone Interview – Schedule calls to get to know you and other follow up questions. 
3. Meet a panel: Mostly a panel of three people 
4. Questionnaire / practical test - Pre-qualification form sent to a portal and followed up with practical test. Get in touch with me for a training session with your youth group on topics like personal branding, blogging, photography, leadership, conflict management, communication among others. Email;- wilson.masaka@gmail.com