TOP 4 Tips to Kenyan Job Seekers From Airtel’s Manager & Other Professionals

By Jane Gakaria,
This past Saturday, there was a Customer Care/Sales & Marketing training which took place at the 680 hotel. Key guest speakers were Dr. William Swanpoel, Program Delivery Manager at Airtel and Mr. Charles Mwakio, a Corporate Emcee and Certified Educator.

Dr. Swanpoel shared that some of the required skills required for this field are attributes such as patience, attentiveness, knowledge of the product etc and their relevance in assisting and retaining customers.

“Every business regardless of what it is it has clients, be it a website, shoe cobbler or even someone self employed. It is important to please and satisfy your customers to keep them coming back. But it should be known that at the end of the day, as a business you’ll never be able to satisfy each and every single one of them”.

And he had some wise words to the employers. “In the case that it’s an employee and not the client who is the problem, don’t fire them but instead train them on customer care service. “I’ve learned that not all situations are not black and white, so I don’t fire employees immediately, I get them trained and in my experience they (the problem employees) have turned out to be the best. If you’re a manager and choose not to train your employee, then I’d blame you and not the employee”.

The irony of this situation is that he himself doesn’t partake in customer care since he’s no good at it. “See I know what skills are needed but I just don’t have them. I am too aggressive and would probably scare off the customers.”

He shares that at one point in his career he was in charge of 27 managers who would handle customers but he himself never once spoke to them since he knew it would probably be the end of his business.

Next up was Mr. Charles Mwakio, a self employed Corporate Emcee and Certified Educator. He started us off with social media branding for job seekers.

He shared an example of how he himself got his first job through social media.

“ I was like you, I’d send 100 CVs with no response. Then one day I was on twitter and saw that the Brand Manager of a particular furniture firm was tweeting about the products they offered. Since I was curious about branding I decided to engage him in a conversation about its importance. As fate would have it he later met the same Brand Manager at an event they had both attended. When I introduced myself he recognized my name from my twitter handle, which became a great ice breaker and I didn’t have to tense up talking to him.

He asked what I did, I told him I was jobless but searching and referred me to a client of his who had a sales vacancy in their firm and that’s how I got my first job.”

Job seekers need to realize that when it comes to social media, personal branding is key and they can ensure this by having an online presence. “You need to make sure you have you have a professional outlook on LinkedIn. Your profile picture together with your bio summary should be appropriate and send the right messages; you should also have an updated career or academic background. Realize it’s your chance to sell yourself and more and more employers will be looking at your history and the things you post”.

Two, keep it social but not too social. “It’s great to interact with people online but don’t take it too far. Don’t go posting pictures of you drunk or half naked. Should you have such keep them to yourself and don’t share them online.”

Three, keep your status updates and tweets close to your interests. “For example if you’re an engineer, tweet about the advances in your career or industry. You never know who might stumble on your tweets as even a potential employer could see them.”

Four, keep active on debates. “This could include Aljazeera live or news shows. It gives you a bigger online presence and shows that you’re up to date with current events. Five, be a trendsetter and not a trend follower. “Don’t wait for people to start hash tagging a particular topic; you yourself could actually start the conversation. The topic doesn’t always need to be serious but it would be better if it was something practical and relatable.”

He concluded by saying that people should take social media more seriously. “It’s not a thing for young teens but the way of the future. People are landing jobs, clients and making tons of money so don’t be left out.”

In conclusion, I’d say the event was quite educative and eye opening.  It was a great experience and well worth it.

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