For most of us, the time between after school but before graduation remains yet the most challenging period of the life after school. I will refer to this period as the transition period.
This is the bridge between school and after school. The transition period doesn’t actually come with a fixed timeline (as it may appear), there is no assurance that the coming of the transcript will make things better.
When we finish our last paper, dreams are very big. Little do we know that we are finishing school to step into yet another school called employment. During this transition period, a few lucky and or connected individuals get placements in companies and organisations that offer on-the-job training opportunities while the rest of us remain waiting, searching.
This transition period is more than just a short interlude but a period where one experiences the frustrations of job hunting, under employment and underpayment.
There is a mismatch between what education offers and what is required in the job market. Individuals leave school with the best grades but lack the practical skills and experience required at jobs, hence the common phrase ‘Jobs need experience, yet we require jobs to get experience’, a very absurd reality.
This in-between period is frustrating because you are no longer a full-time student but a job seeker, and you feel you ought to be working, earning and contributing, yet you are not. If you are, it is not what you anticipated. The process of job seeking is in itself a full-time job.
You send out CVs, attend interviews if you are lucky, you try networking, you update your LinkedIn daily, and yet still face the reality of rejection and silence from employers.
This forces many of us to accept jobs that barely cover the basics like rent, food and transport. This underpayment, coupled with the ever-increasing cost of living and job insecurity or absence, means many of us feel like we are being treated like the available, abundant, unskilled, cheap and undervalued labour we studied about in secondary school.
A recent study report in June 2023 showed that 49 percent of Ugandans in informal employment earned less than Shs168,000 per month, which is not even enough to afford basic needs in this economy.
The problem of unemployment can be seen to present itself in form of a job but not worth much.
When one has spent 20+ years studying, and they’ve invested time and resources, the expectation is that one’s first ‘real job’ will at least reflect some returns. But where are the returns if the ‘real job’ in itself is not there? This is why many people in Uganda today refer to qualifications as ‘just papers’.
Despite the fact that many others have gone to school, found jobs in their fields of training and are earning decent money, a bigger part of us have ended up resentful, demoralised and stuck. One starts to ask themselves questions like ‘Why did I study this?’ ‘Where are the returns?’ ‘Will I be stuck here forever?’
This period of transition is one in which many of us go astray and even end up in very different career paths than we always imagined. This is because, as you step out of school, you realise the job market is different, it is smaller, slower and most of all in Uganda, it is network-driven.
As time goes by and graduation approaches, you fear because you will not only be called jobless but also a jobless graduate engineer! You look forward and see colleagues who graduated two years ago still competing with you for the same jobs, you look behind and see a class of yet to be fresh graduates that you left at school also approaching.
In this period of transition, many of us succumb to short term gigs, which are also the welcome song to the so-called hustle economy because we have bills to pay and we have expectations.
It is no longer just the period between study and job; it is a test of identity, self-worth and resilience.
Underpayment is not just earning very little, it is more of not earning enough to reflect one’s effort, education and work hours. We resent the system for promising growth and delivering none, promising advancement yet delivering delay. We expect our qualifications to open doors, yet we find them closed, heavily restricted or non-existent.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking, and we watch our most youthful and productive years slip away day by day.
All this said, we must not let the transition period define us; we can make choices within this period that will set our trajectory for better days.
These include, among others, building valuable or employable skills like communication, time consciousness, soft skills, seeking networks and useful mentors who will link us to better opportunities, and being realistic about wages and what we can accept in the future (but also strategic).
We must use this period to position ourselves for a better next step; the low wage doesn’t mean our value is low. Guard your self-worth jealously.