16 Oct 2016

Scores of University of Botswana (UB) students thronged the annual UB career exposition on October 13 to get insight into the world of work from industry experts and establish rapport with potential employers. 
UB Careers and Counseling Centre deputy director Mr Selebaleng Mmapatsi said the exposition was an annual event aimed at bringing employers, organisations and entrepreneurs to create awareness of the available employment opportunities and critical skills required in the current employment market, entrepreneurship and personal career development.
Mr Mmapatsi said the theme of the expo was ‘Opening doors to your career, start at the University, go anywhere’ with the goal of developing an all rounded student who oozes innovation, employs strategic approaches and is endowed with traits that employers are in need of.
Ms Morekolodi Kanambi is a fourth year UB Economics student who said in an interview that she had learnt a lot from the exposition.  For her, the expo was a window that showed her the world of employment outside of an academic institution. She said it was an eye opener as it presented a banquet of opportunities for her as a student.
Further Kanambi said as she moved around the various exhibitors it dawned on her that the job market was saturated and there was need for young people to come up with creative solutions to the world problems to generate employment.
Quizzed on what she thought should be done to deal with unemployment for graduates she said, “government takes care of us from elementary education to tertiary education, we should be responsible for finding employment for ourselves rather than look up to government to provide us with jobs, we should  come up with creative solutions to problems, we need to brand ourselves to be able  to thrive out there,” she said.
Mr Loago Kamongenje is a Limkokwing Multimedia Degree graduate who is currently on Graduate Voluntary Scheme (GVS) attached to UB under the Careers Unit, “this expo has taught me how I can empower myself. As I moved around I noticed that vacancies are there but companies have no money to fill up those spaces,” he said adding that this was evident on internship opportunities companies were willing to offer them to augment staff.
“These companies require us to make a difference but it is not easy as they cannot absorb us, we need to find clever ways of getting employment and starting businesses,” he said.
Companies which exhibited included Department Information Services, BICA, CIMA, Attorney Generals Chambers, Lion Tutoring, FNB Botswana, GIMS Botswana, Botswana Police Services, Botswana Tourism Organisation, Business Botswana, Botswana Institute of Geomatics, Barclays Bank, DHL, Botswana Oil and Botswana Life Insurance. ENDS