A Day Spent at the Graduate Corporate Connect part 3.

To follow the series, please get to read about the part 1

and two to get to what employers expect from graduates, how to secure funding

from your business, the five battles

every entrepreneur must fight, unlocking opportunities in the job market and

the continuation of Strength based career development by Dr. Geneva Masau, HR

manager of Barclays Bank Ghana.

The following points are what you need to know that you are

in the right career by Dr. Geneva.

1. Speed of learning.

2. Non financial motivation. You must learn to do

things for free.

3. Restless zeal/passion.

4. Non flawless performance.

5. Lose track of time.

6. Feedback from others.

7. Find ways to link it to whatever you are doing.

Also speaking about how we can really play to our strengths

she made illustration with personalities such as Usian Bolt who we all know for

his athletics strength, he is currently the world’s fastest being. Next was

Barack Obama, US president and Will smith the American Superstar who we all

know for his personalities. This people really play to their strength and also

because they are not in any mainstream employment. So to my understanding, for

you to play your strength I can consider not being in a really mainstream

employment.

Have you heard of the paradigm shift? It contributes to your

strength. There are great lessons to learn what she spoke about.

1. Fixing Weakness: we must move from fixing our

weakness to building our strengths.

2. You grow most rapidly in your area of strength

not your weakness. You should spend more time developing them not minimizing

weakness.

3. Organisations and individual spend more time/

fund addressing weaknesses and barely anytime developing their areas of strength.

4. We are all leaders- you need to lead from your

area of strength.

5. Not making it to up or the degree of choice

should not be interpreted as falure. This could be a solution to Africa’s

unemployment problem. Don’t you think so? Most of us give up anytime we don’t

get what we want.

How do you develop your strength based career?

1. Strength Finder: this helps reveal your top five

strength or talents. It tells you who you are.

2. Identity: it discovers your natural talents. Skills are learnt whiles

talents are

discovered. It also helps you to describe you style, your signature, and your

uniqueness. This also helps you explain your recurring patterns of thought and

feelings. It finally gives you a positive language to describe your style and

also a lot ore you can get from her. Sharing her top five strengths as she took

the test, she is a learner, responsible futuristic, has belief and focused.

3. Stand out test: it provides insights on how to win it in

working, tells you what your uniqueness is, how you show up, give indicators of

roles that you will be best fitted for and others.

She also gave us by explaining what employers who play their

strength get from this test.

1. Outperform their colleagues.

2. Are more productive.

3. Are less likely to steal

4. Stay in organisation.

5. Better safety record.

The Pursuit of Mastery.

1. Your reward is at the highest where you reach

mastery level.

2. Process of achieving mastery is simple. You need

to discover your strength, appreciate the power and opportunities and your

dominant strength offer. You need to invest in the developing of your strength.

3. You need to mentor people.

Speaking next is the Chief Technical Officer of Tigo Ghana,

Mr. Obafemi Banigbe. Challenging us

there is one I must share with you. Your net worth is determined by your net

work. The larger your network the larger your net worth tends to be. He spoke on

the topic KLESSONS I WISH EVERY

STUDENT WERE TAUGHT BEFORE GRADUATING. Sharing his story about how he attended

university, whiles in school in June 1996 he got his first job in a small

computer shop. Even after completing his university education he decided to

leave his parents home just with 20 cedis equivalent to look for his destiny.

And the lessons.

1. Worldview and values are the foundation of

abundance and scarcity mentality.

2. Make up your mind to give life your best

shot/effort.

3. When you define a dream, your dream will go

ahead of you to define your future. Life will give you what you define as a

dream. Define the dreams of your future.

4. Activity is not seen as a product. Be busy with

an end in mind.

5. You can do all things but not at the same time.

Sharing his story, when he received a post to east Africa, it became mandatory

that he learns Swahili and French. He then decided to take both at the same

time so that he could learn it so fast. But unfortunately after some weeks he

was mixing the languages a s put both Swahili and French words in the same

sentence. So do one thing at a time.

6. You work to learn not just to earn.

7. Passion alone is not enough we need to add

skills to them in other to make them work. You need to find the intersection

between passion, skills and market.

8. Volunteer, it opens you up for opportunities and

provides the right skills.

9. Money is a reward for services rendered.

10. The bigger the problem the bigger the

opportunity. But if the problem is big,

it comes with a big company but a problem solved creates an influence.

11. Learn how to maximize the moment.

12. Failure is not final.

13. You may not always have a full picture but you

must a plan.

14. Talk is cheap backup your word with action.

15. You have to start from where you are.

Speaking next was the COO of Citi Fm, Mr. Bernard Avle.

Speaking on the topic, THE WORLD OF WORK his work was so simple but full of

impacts. In Ghana according to the 2010 census there are 25million people. That

was a huge increase as in 2004 we were 18 million people. In that population only 6

percent have

government jobs while 7 percent are in the private formal sector. The advantage

this people have is that they have job security which is very important. 87 belong

to their private informal sector.

He also taught us how to write a CV with illustration I

refuse to share them with you but if you are interested in being part of this.

It is going through a national tour. Your education, qualification certificate are

not enough. Get some more

knowledge.

Thanks to the team led by Albert Kusi for this life changing

conference which is yet to hit other parts of the country.

Thank You.

Akpah Prince

akpahprince@ymail.com

akpahprince.wordpress.com