Zambia: Finding the Perfect Zambian Employee
School leavers queuing up for police recruitment in Lusaka
By Wesley Ngwenya
Introduction
What qualities and qualifications do you look for as an employer when hiring? What are the most important attributes you consider? Whether it is education or experience the employer has to look deeper into the candidate to ensure they will fit into the overall goals of the organization.
There are three important characteristics that an employer needs to take into consideration in their search for a candidate. They are characteristic are what I call the three Es. They are education, experience and ethics.
Education
Education is a very important quality. Both formal and informal education should be taken into consideration. There are certainly occupations that require that a candidate have formal education to help them understand and interpret information. This is certainly important in many vocations such as accounting and medicine. However, there are also many vocations that require a candidate to have education whether formal or informal. A skilled computer programmer does not necessarily need to be formally educated. Nowadays many young people teach themselves how to operate, program and repair computers at an early age. Such skills can be taken advantage of by an employer.
Solely looking at formal education alone is a big mistake on the part of employers. A lot skilled candidates are left out because other qualities are not taken into consideration. In Zambia especially, employers are hang on diplomas and degrees. They have the diploma disease. What if you are able to find a candidate who can perform better and is exceptionally good but does not have the degrees and diplomas? Do you leave them out on the basis of education? Or do you bring them on board and disregard the lack of diplomas and hire them?
Experience
Experience is perhaps the most important quality an employer should take into consideration. I have helped various people in designing their resumes. Many candidates especially those without formal work experience often neglect the other forms of experiences they have acquired in life. Many young people have various life experiences in leadership and business. One can note in their resume that they managed the family’s expenses or they led and taught a group of youths at church. A candidate who recognizes and appreciates these experiences is likely sharp and thinks outside the box. Employers need to consider the candidate’s life experiences. If these are not highlighted in the resume then they should be asked during the actual interview. A candidate who has been able to deal with many complex life situations outside the workplace will very likely be successful at their job. They will be able to deal with various complex work situations independently.
In considering the candidate’s experience, obviously, the employer need to ask the question, “how will the company benefit from the candidate’s experience?” The company needs to clearly relate to how the experience will fit in the candidate’s job description and key result areas. In the same way, the candidate’s challenge is to show that their experience will be highly beneficial to the employer. They need to come up strong and make the potential employer that they cannot do without them.
Ethics
This is perhaps the most overlooked characteristics by employers. It is very important to know the candidate’s ethics so that you can determine how that candidate can fit in the culture of the organization. Employers should look for candidates with unwavering work ethics. Similarly, the candidates need to define their work ethics. They need to determine how their work ethics will benefit the organization to which they are seeking employment.
Ethics are vital in the sense that employers can set some standards on what qualities to expect in a prospective employee. Ethics are important because they filter candidates who are just looking for employment and those who are looking for a career and understand the culture and goals of the organization.
Conclusion
Finally, when looking for a candidate the three Es are important characteristics to consider. They help the organization to get the best of the best. It also helps the prospective employee to distinguish themselves from others. It is the challenge of the prospective employee to show their excellence in education, experience and ethics.
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This article would have been more interesting if it was addressed to Job seekers. Nice composition though.
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the ethics part is not very clear
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Good effort but in future, consult Human Resources professionals for advice. Modern recruitment processes involve so many other aspects that this artcile has not mentioned. How about Competence based interviews. Also, inteviews depend on what level or grade. Requirements for those in management are different for those at clerical level. In the UK, references are cardinal. You could lose a job, no matter how well you did, if a referee gives you an adverse report.
Interview skills can be perfected by reading books etc. So someone can make the interview tick all the boxes but end up not as good in the job.
Some employers include Assessment centres, computer based testing, aptitude tests etc in recruitment.
I advise you to read about current recruitment processes.
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kuva chekela and you get the job! why suffer like this
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The 3 Es as articulated sound good. I like the writing. We need the 3 Es for Presdo!
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FALSE::A skilled computer programmer does not necessarily need to be formally educated. Nowadays many young people teach themselves how to operate, program and repair computers at an early age.
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You are a brave man Wesley and a risk taker. Not many are willing to expose their inadequacies or ignorance in a public dormain. For that I give you the thumbs up. Soon you’ll be like Chibamba Kanyama, making money as a consultant whilst the arm chair “intellectuals” critisise you and tell you to consult experts in HR. So many intellectuals say Chibamba doesnt know anything about economics but look at how money the dude is making for himself. So dont dispair continue advising though you know nothing
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Zedan33 i agree…education(formal) is not only about intellect..at university level,u learn how to interact with people or very different backgrounds and exposures…and your thinking capacity is broadened…i personally did a lot of computer studies in zambia…and i thot i was literate til i came to india to do my degree and i immediately realised the importance of formal education….the above article is automatically declared spam….
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Nepotism rules in Zambia. The question is how do you fire an incompetent relative?
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Good Afternoon
It is just as well Wesley headlined the article “Finding the Perfect Zambian Employee” because when it comes to employing other nationalities, I could add a thing or two. For example, among all nations I have been in contact with, Japenese are the hardest working of all. They are also the most industrious. Germans are quite reliable and incorruptible at the same time. So a company can never go wrong by employing these two nationalities.
Anyhow, back to the Zambian base – such topics are very good for debating on a forum like this and since thematic scale is quite slant on LT (mainly political), I truly appreciate the article.
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I meant “Japanese” of course and not “Japenese” as wrongly spelled above…
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It’s really about who you know and who knows you in Zambia. If you know some people in high places you can get fastracked careerwise. All those compentencies don’t mean a thing because most top zambian jobs involve lower employee’s working their asses of only for credit to be taken by an individual in a top position. You would be surprised as to how many dundaheads are in top jobs because of knowing people .
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I agree with the author though the list is not exhaustive. Depending on the job you are interviewing for, the weighting may vary on attributes. In the US, it has become more acceptable for HR recruiters to give priority to referrals. This is not another form of nepotism but gives the recruiter the peace to sleep at night especially if the referrer is reliable. I do not believe that there is a particular nationality that has it all in terms of work culture. This depends on an individual. I have worked with most nationalities but i can`t point out or stereotype any particular race or nationality as having bad work ethics.
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