Answering your job search woes

Weekender

By LEMACH LAVARI
YOUNG people can now get help with finding employment or developing their careers for those who are already in employment.
PNG Career Development Inc. is a professional entity that runs the Career Development and &Employment Enhancement Program (CDEEP), and seeks to assist and facilitate the development of careers of young people and those seeking employment, through workshops, seminars and by way of regular advising and counseling.
It will also connect people and young job seekers to prospective employers and resources that are available within organizations and the community.
The organization is the brainchild of University of Papua New Guinea academic John Kamasua. He is the Strand Leader and a senior lecturer of the Social Work Division at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Organization is a culmination of nine years of dedication towards developing the Career Development & Employment Enhancement Program and carrying out workshops at the UPNG Waigani campus. Realizing the significance of the program other lecturers have added value to the program over time.
PNG Career Development Inc. will be formally launched on Thursday the 2nd of March at the Gateway hotel. Government ministers, departmental heads and corporate and private sector entities are being invited to attend. The group also welcomes sponsors for the program.
The employment enhancement aspects include: CV writing, writing cover letters, interview preparation and tips, and job search tips including where and how-to search for jobs and vacancies. The career development component of the program focuses on how and why young people should aspire to develop careers instead of just seeking to hold down jobs. Tools administered in this component include Career Interest Test and Personality Test.
These tools help students to know their own potential and in which field of study and career they can pursue.
This program is significant as employment for young people means keeping them away from the lure of crime and indulging in drugs and prostitution and other anti-social behaviour that are illegal.
Also, the CDEEP Program upholds the key pillars of the PNG Vision 2050; Human Capital Development Gender, Youth and People Empowerment. In addition it is aligned with strategic aspirations of the PNG Development Strategic Plan 2010-2030.
“Before I started this program I was still teaching at the university and final year students would approach me to write reference letters for them to use in their application for work. I’d ask them if they had a CV or transcript to help me write their references,” Kamasua said.
“This became ongoing and therefore I decided to do my own research and discovered that there is a lot of information online on how to write CVs and cover letters.”
While there are organizations, and even universities, all over the world that are providing such services UPNG does not provide such assistance to students.
Kamasua then came up with the idea to develop such a program that would assist university students with skills in writing CVs and cover letters and preparing them for interviews and how to look for jobs.
“It is a myth that there is a lack of job opportunities for graduates, jobs are not just advertised on the daily newspapers, some jobs are available but are not being advertised, some are online and overseas, so how do graduates look for these jobs?”
This is the type of questions the program seek to answer and provide information on.
He further explains that to think that a degree certificate will equate to a job is a very narrow perspective and he hopes that program will help graduates realize the whole spectrum of opportunities they have. Students, he said, can even seek to be self-employed or develop other skills and capabilities while searching for jobs in their specific fields.
“Graduates should not only seek to look for a job and hold it down but to aspire to develop careers.”
Hence, he decided on the program being called, Career Development & Employment Enhancement Program.
Students who have attended these workshops have responded positively with remarks about how they used the information from the workshop to secure employment, apply for further studies and were successful and generally developed their personal capacity.
Kamasua said it has been challenging and he struggles with trying to obtain funding to cater for materials needed to run the workshop on campus. Also being a fulltime lecturer and now a strand leader he has so much on his plate as an academic. Despite that he still finds the energy to plan for the workshops because it is the passion that he has. He wants to make sure graduates are equipped with these vital skills so that they become resourceful not just in their chosen fields of but as individuals in life.
Hence, funding for resources is what they need most at this point to have the program run effectively in order to assist more graduates. Moreover, Kamasua is broaching the idea of having workshops designed for and facilitated in secondary schools, colleges and vocational schools in Port Moresby and other centres too.
I believe that this is a program that has immense potential in driving the change in the mindsets of people. Change starts from the mind and then the heart and finally into action.