‘Half-baked’ graduates on the increase

BY STANDARD REPORTER

KENYA: As he walked into the interview room, the smartly dressed young man caught the attention of the interviewers.

Joel’s confidence was reassuring and when he sat down and answered the first question, some of the interviewers felt it was meaningless to proceed with the session as they had found the man they wanted.

Nonetheless, they continued with the task as a formality, interviewing two more candidates. Later, they gave Joel the accounting job.

But two weeks into the job, the firm realised they had made the wrong decision.

“Joel could not perform basic accounting tasks, yet he had a remarkable CV and qualifications that included a Bachelor of Commerce degree - Accounting option,” narrates a human resource assistant at the company. The firm relieved him of the job and incurred additional expenses hiring another person. It is an experience many firms are going through, and human resource experts warn that such graduates are on the rise.

They are blaming it on proliferation of institutions of higher learning across the country.

“The number of ‘half-baked’ graduates is rising fast and it is posing challenges to many institutions,” says Patrick Mutisya of Manpower Services Group.

Mutisya notes that some unqualified graduates have perfected the art of interviews to the point that they convince interviewers that they are experts. “They will persuade you that they are qualified, only to discover that they cannot perform simple tasks that are obvious in any profession,” he says. He attributes the vice to the mushrooming of colleges, which are offering substandard education. “Colleges have taken control of most towns but they are not adhering to set education standards. The quality of human resource is nose-diving at an alarming rate because of this,” he says.

Some organisations, according to Mutisya, are finding it difficult to fill vacancies because there are no qualified people.

Bad name

“Human resource practitioners are increasingly finding themselves unable to fill vacant positions since out of many applicants, few have the needed skills,” he observes.

“This leads to increased cost of repeat advertising, which is time consuming,” he adds.  Because of the  high number of highly educated but unskilled job seekers many organisations are reaching out to independent human resource firms during recruitment. “They are passing the job to recruitment agencies to help them weed out unqualified graduates, some of who are from very popular institutions,” he notes.

Mutisya calls for restructuring of the higher education sector. “The Commission for University Education needs to ensure colleges conform to set standards,” he advises, noting ‘half-baked’ graduates are expensive and they are giving their alma maters a bad name.