It is the day you have been waiting for, it has been four long tough years and yet the day has finally arrived, It is your graduation day. As you begin to put on your brand new suit, shoes, tie in fact everything is new, you take a moment to bask in the glory of a better, easier life to come.

You do not even want to eat, you are not hungry, and this is a day that will be witnessed by many seeing you being capped with an honors degree. On this day you are being picked up and driven in a special car, you look back at the four years you struggled to raise money for food, transport, rental, books, and the internet. It does not matter anymore, within the next few months with your solid degree, you will walk into an excellent job, with excellent perks and who knows within few years get a promotion, buy a car. If all goes according to your plans and you find a job in bank you might just own your first home and pretty soon you will marry your childhood sweetheart and live happily ever after.

These are thoughts that go through the mind of anyone studying towards a qualification, even more so graduates who have never worked before. These thoughts come to a standstill when what seems to be a nightmare begins, the job search nightmare. Throughout the long years studying for a degree, diploma or certificate very few students get the opportunity to speak or listen to someone about the job search process. The focus is always on passing yet another exam, few institutions of higher learning take time to inform students of what they are up against in the ‘real business world’. Often on Graduation day I see such happy faces all over town, having their photos taken; proudly wearing their lovely graduation gowns and I find myself saying ‘you have no idea what you about to experience.

When the graduate starts sending out applications, responding to adverts in the newspaper, talking to possible employers they are discover a word the is used very often ‘EXPERIENCE’. They are informed that whilst their degree is relevant, they do not have the relevant experience. The graduate begins to questions where they can learn and get experience if they are not given the opportunity. The word experience simply defined refers to the nature of the events someone or something has undergone, it is a general concept comprising of knowledge of or skill in or observation of something or event gained through involvement in or exposure. Simply explained when employers insist that they want to employ people with experience, they are looking for people who already know the practical duties and responsibilities of that position, they want someone who has done the work before so that they do not have to start training the person from scratch.

The question that we need to answer for the millions of brilliant, young, energetic and driven graduates is how they get experience if they are not provided an opportunity to learn and gain it. It is our responsibility as employers to find ways and means to provide the much needed experience to graduate. Everyone started somewhere in the acquiring experience, we happened to meet with a company that had faith in our abilities even in the absence of experience. We were given a golden opportunity to start a career even without experience. I was fortunate to have worked in Zimbabwe a number of years ago and what was evident was the number of organizations that had developed graduate/ management trainee programs. The graduate trainee program were normally over a period of two years within which students were given intensive training first in all the departments and all aspects of the business and second year the graduate trainee would then be able to specialize in whatever field they studied. At the end of the two years, the super performing students were often offered middle management positions in preparation for them to take on management positions. Those that failed to pass or impress within the two years were not confirmed. Even though they were not confirmed, it still meant that they had acquired two years of experience and could virtually walk into yet another good job.

More often than not these graduates were paid allowances that allowed them to be able to fill their basic needs of transport, lunch, and clothing. The graduates were not interested in getting huge salaries, their hunger was for experience which cannot bought anywhere even if you happen to be the child of the richest man in the world, you cannot buy experience, it is something that is gained.

These young graduates that many companies or organizations seem to ignore have so much energy, up to date information, motivated and always hit the ground running in their performance because they want to impress and they know the challenges of finding employment. Companies need to find or look into ways of employing graduate trainees in their organization. Human Resource Managers or Training Managers can work towards developing graduate trainee programs that will ensure that a win-win situation is created. The company gains manpower, delivery of set targets while the student gains experience. We have on our database a huge number of students with excellent results and credentials out of institutions of higher learning and my heart bleeds when I speak to confident, well spoken potential employees and I have to tell them the challenges they will face find a job with no experience.

One of my tasks as a Human Resource Consultant is to assist job seekers find employment and in many instances we have been able to convince companies to take on students for industrial attachment for various periods. We want to be able to link more students to organizations; we look forward to organizations setting up specific graduate management trainee programs that can absorb out young graduates into the formal work environment. We want institutions of higher to work with us identify graduates so that industry can employ them. After all someone was kind enough to give us the opportunity when we finished college, we could make a difference in the lives of graduates if we could provide the same opportunity we were given those many years ago.