The job hunting 101

Dear not-so-young reader, you recently left College. Dar es Salaam  University. Mzumbe. UDOM. The rest. Outside countries. The first week at home was exciting; you needed the rest. All those nights in club cut short to rush back to your dimly lit room to copy your friend’s assignment to be able to hand in early the next morning paid off; you are on the graduation list after all. It is week two and daddy has started dropping subtle hints.

You have watched every series that you managed to squeeze onto your hard disk before leaving campus, pausing only to ceremoniously throw away your notes. It is now time to dust off that ill-fitting suit you last wore to Aunt Matilda’s wedding all those years back. It is time to throw on the one skirt you have that got you quite a few compliments back then so it’s probably your safest bet.
 

A few practical job-hunting tips. Do not:

Use Facebook
I may be wrong on this but I don’t know anyone who got a job by updating their status update to ‘Yo niggz, I’m srchg 4 a jb. Hlp mi’. You may be the first. If you do get a job that way then please call me up and say “In your face!! Muhhahahaha” and hang up. My phone number is printed in the sports section, right next to the story about how a giraffe beat all naysayers and won the county back-to-school dash.

Use slang
If you do get past all the bad statistics and actually land a job interview, it would greatly help your chances if you cleaned up your English. “I was at that mabibo of campoo for four years reading those of mascom with my gangos.” My research on the latest slang all the cool kids are using these days wasn’t too fruitful so I pieced that together from watching Diamon Platnumz videos.

Get off topic
Many interviews start with the rather amorphous “Tell me/us about yourself” question. In as much as it is all too tempting to spew everything, including how your pet monkey likes his bananas pre-heated in a microwave or how you plan to spend your life hunting elephants for their tusks, do not do it. Stick to stuff in your CV.