The triumphant voice of a 5 year old girl sings ‘Oh Happy Day, Oh Happy Day’, as her little fingers blast away the major keys on a newly acquired piano stationed just beside the dining table in their three bedroom house in Ottawa. Her music teacher, a specialist hired by her parents, stands by to make sure she strikes the right notes at the right time. Occasionally, he interrupts and instructs the little girl to start all over again. These days, she does not need the guidance of the music instructor to strike the essential keys, because she is getting quite good at it. But that is only part of the reason why her instructor has left her at the mercy of the keyboard. The actual reason is that her parents can no longer afford to pay the music teacher $120 every week from their dwindling earnings. Her mum’s job has been under threat since the recent recession. She has survived two lay-offs in seven months, but that has meant a loss in wages, as her working hours have been reduced to an uncomfortable minimum. Daddy has been unable to find a job after completing a PhD programme a year and a half ago. In the absence of music lessons, the little girl hums a little tune of disappointment, which could pass for her own creation of ‘Oh sad day, oh sad day, when daddy took the music teacher away.’
If music lessons are a luxury, life is not. Despite the dwindling income, the young Ghanaian couple, who live in an all white neighbourhood in a semi-middle class area in the Canadian capital, have to meet the ever increasing living expenses in a cosmopolitan setting. They barely have anything left after paying the mortgage and the accompanying household bills. They also have to remit their relations back in Ghana, most of whom have no idea what it means to live in a recession in welfare Canada. Even if both partners were working, it would still have been difficult to meet all their demands. With the man of the house turning into a live-in husband, as his PhD degree lays in a drawer in their bedroom, the reality of unemployment is dawning on them like never before.
When Emmanuel Nyarko completed his PhD programme in international law at a popular Canadian university, he had lots of hope that he would get his dream job before his actual graduation date, as was the case with most of the previous year’s graduates. Nonetheless, he decided to go job hunting earlier than the time most graduates usually do, because of his family responsibilities. He had already identified potential employers before he started his thesis, which, he strategically chose to write on the operations of his employer of choice. He was virtually a part of the workforce because of his very many visits to the organisation. The nature of his research saw him consult management personnel and other important employees in sensitive departments. He had the chance to relate to sister departments of his main case study organisation, where he built some important personal and professional contacts. He thought all these contacts would count towards his job search, to make a dream career easily attainable. One and a half years on, what seemed a realistic target has suddenly become a distant possibility. All potential employers are no more hiring. In fact, most of them are cutting down on manpower. As employers downsize, his problems continue to upsize, leaving him with very few options in a market that is governed by the forces of demand and supply, as well as other exogenous international factors. However, he has some options available to him.
One of the options is to pretend to be a theatre person, and live the truism that there are no small roles in life, only small parts. That way, he would not find it uncomfortable taking any survival job to get ends to meet. From serving coffee at Tim Hortons to welcoming visitors at Deloitte and Touche as a security guard, there are lots of jobs that any illiterate can get to buy food at McDonalds or cigarette at Shoppers. Emmanuel is not new to survival jobs, having lived in the west for some twelve years. Just that, he has had enough of them, and deserves a fresher challenge. Besides, he has put so much value into himself; he just cannot make nonsense of it all by signing on as a full-time shop assistant. And frankly, he feels it is beneath him to go from one address to the other selling energy products or cleaning public lavatories when he finds it difficult to clean the one in his own house. Yet, he has not earned any money for more than a year, and is surviving on his wife’s salary. There are also children to be fed. How much can a woman take?
Lately, he has been considering taking a job as a credit card salesman or insurance sales representative. Those are not jobs you could walk into any day; they require training and money. To be considered for a position, he would need to hide his two Masters Degrees and his PhD. Yet, at the interview, he would be expected to demonstrate the quality of experience and scholarship that only a PhD holder would have. If he eventually gets hired, he would also need to learn to take instructions from an 18 year old supervisor who is struggling to better his high school grades. It wouldn’t matter much to such a supervisor to know that one of his subordinates has a PhD. Then, again, how long can he remain in this kind of job. These are commission-based occupations that really occupy all your time, sometimes bringing no money at all. Before he really starts to earn any good money, he would need to have passed the probationary period and pleased his bosses.
For a second option, Emmanuel could consider internship or voluntary opportunities with good organisations, where he would work for free and not earn a cent for months. Internships are very useful in the job searching process. In most cases, those who perform well in voluntary roles are rewarded with employment at the end of the period. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ (NACE) Student Survey in America, observed that 73% of students who found jobs in 2009 had worked as interns. Internships sometimes make up for the lack of job experience; a problem that prevents many quality graduates from getting good jobs. Employers are not looking for good degrees to fill positions; they want people who have an idea of what to do when hired, and can do it well with minimal supervision. Simple tasks such as answering telephone calls and welcoming visitors to an office environment have to be learned. There is a proper way to hand over a complimentary card to a business prospect, other than just thrusting it into his hands. When done professionally, the gesture is immediately reciprocated. The office environment is planetary science for the new graduate whose world had been limited to the university lecture theatres, where professors stand in loco parentis with respect to their students, guiding and correcting them like their children at home. At the job front, employers evaluate good work not only on the basis of how much you put in, but also how well you coordinate with others to realise a collective mission. Recording the minutes of a meeting is not the same as writing an essay or a reported speech. It is an art that must be learnt and practised over time. Most meeting recorders who have fastidious bosses are used to seeing strokes of red ink in their reports. A third option would be throwing himself back on the professors at his former university, to be considered for a postdoctoral research position. The NACE survey also found that 26% of graduates went back to school for further studies in 2009. This is an improvement on the 2007 statistics, which saw 20 of college graduates going back to university. While many students sign on to do advanced degrees to upgrade their knowledge in their field of study, a sizeable percentage see the university environment as a haven that reduces the anxiety in looking for a job or a career. The dreaded question that most graduates fear to answer is ‘What do you do now?” It is easier to answer that you are pursuing further studies than to say you are unemployed or still looking for a job at 38. But students often forget that by taking solace in a third degree, they are only deferring the problem they ran away from. Soon, they would complete the program to face an even greater problem, because they would have aged past many management trainee jobs. At 38, you should be training people, not being trained for a job. Employers do not find it fun training grey haired scholars; a sophomore would be ideal for such a training package.
The fourth option is to stop polishing his resume and consider effective networking and informational interviews. Emmanuel’s life is built around his resume. He has developed many versions to reflect the different types experts recommend. He has copies of the conventional, functional and the combination CV. He has applied to nearly 800 jobs since graduation, but he has had very few interviews. He has a presence on nearly all the job hunting sites on the internet. By now, he should realise that good CVs are not good enough until they are read. The reality is that most of the advertised jobs had already been taken before the advertisement hit the newspapers. What he needs to do is to put off the computer and go out there to meet with people, make friends and share ideas. That is called networking. My brother-in-law keeps changing high profile jobs, often to the disgust of my wife, who thinks he should learn to build a career in one organisation. The guy is not particularly brilliant, but he knows nearly everybody. Even in a recession, he still keeps turning down some good job offers. Presently, he is torn between deciding on two multinational employers. He is not shy to go knocking doors and asking for informational interviews. He does lots of job shadows even when he has a permanent job. That is how he gets his jobs. They see his face, not his CV. So, he gets the interviews that Emmanuel, sitting behind his computer in a posh neighbourhood, will only dream of. Emmanuel should also get used to the idea that many jobs are not advertised at all. These are the jobs for those who venture to show their face at intimidating office environments.
Finally, he should appreciate the dynamics of the current employment market and the challenges posed by the recession. Last month alone, 467,000 jobs were lost in the USA. Official statistics put the unemployment rate at 9.5. Contrary to political statements that the economy of the USA will pick up after the massive capital injection by the Obama administration, experts predict that the situation may get worse. The NACE survey shows that less than 20% of 2009 graduates have found jobs. Nearly 41% of college graduates have not even bothered to look for a job, because they don’t believe they would find one.
Still, Emmanuel should keep his eyes open. He should also keep talking about his job search to people. Above all, he should look into the future with hope and optimism. One day, his daughter will sing ‘Oh Happy day, Oh Happy Day, when Daddy found a job.’
Benjamin Tawiah
Email: quesiquesi@hotmail.co.uk
