UDSM KUMBEEEE....

Recruitment Secretariat plans training
programme
Highly qualified Masters and Bachelors
degree holders in Tanzania fail to compete in
the labour market because they lack skills in
writing application letters and curriculum
vitae (CV), the government has said.
Head of Government Communication Unit for
Public Service Recruitment Secretariat, Riziki
Abraham, said in a news conference
yesterday in Dar es Salaam that despite
having the required qualifications, the
majority of graduates in the country fail to
get employed because their CVs are not
written properly.
She said apart from poor CV writing skills,
English grammar follows as a major deterrent
keeping the applicants from making it even
to the first interview despite their high
qualifications.
“The situation at hand proves that graduates
who seek jobs only went to the universities to
earn degrees, not to acquire actual practical
skills that will enable them work
professionally in different sectors,” said the
Recruitment Secretariat.
“In fact, most of them (graduates) do not
even understand what they studied and
graduated for,” she said.
Further, she said most of the graduates lack
confidence, have no interview taking skills
and are also not conversant with the most
basic of computer programmes.
She said last year, they received at least
6,500 application letters for different posts,
but already more than 600 have failed to
meet the qualifications mainly because of the
way they wrote their application letters and
CVs. Abraham said the secretariat is planning
to start providing education to various
colleges and universities in the country on
how to equip the students with the
appropriate skills needed to write winning
applications and comprehensive CVs.
“We have decided to do this due to the fact
that this situation is only expected to get
worse,” she noted saying the education
campaign will begin in the next financial
year.
Responding, Prof Humphrey Moshi of the
University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) told The
Guardian over the telephone that it is very
frustrating to learn that students who have
graced the university corridors still cannot
write proper job application letters.
He narrowed down the causes to two things,
lack of confidence and failure to concentrate
on language use.
To curb the trend, the professor said there is
need for universities to start appropriate
programmes on how to write application
letters and CVs.
“Universities should come up with
programmes that teach students ahead of
graduation the proper skills to use in job
application letters and CV writing,” said the
faculty of Economics professor.
For his part, UDSM Vice Chancellor, Prof
Rwekaza Mkandala said he would only
comment after reading the article.
Meanwhile Riziki Abraham said they have
managed to identify about 1,035 fake
certificates since the secretariat was
established four years ago.
She called on all job seekers to abstain from
use of fake or any form of fraudulent
documentations warning them of strict legal
measures.
“We are collaborating with the police,
National Examination Council of Tanzania
(Necta) and the immigration department to
verify the authenticity of certificates in use,”
she warned.

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