On 28 June 2010 10:26, Simon Mbuthia
<simon.mbuthia@gmail.com>
wrote:
I believe the applicant is serious... but just ignorant. I
guess the onus is on our local tertiary institutions to train
their students on these matters, although they should also
take the initiative to learn by themselves how to go about
drafting such letters.
My brief thoughts on this.
1. Nairobits is doing fantastic work.
2. Simon - you meant primary not tertiary right? Formal
letter writing is a skill that should be taught in primary
school not at tertiary level. Perhaps I am displaying my age
here but I remember having to demonstrate the ability to write
a formal letter as part of the internal ENTRANCE tests to
secondary school. At the very least by the first year of high
school you should know the format and structure of a formal
letter.
3. Many people on this list work to raise standards in our
country. One reason I find Skunkworks valuable is because it
is full of patriots of one sort or the other. To assume that
we demand certain standards because we do not understand the
challenges many Kenyans go through every day is ridiculous and
petty. It is because we know the challenges AND we know what
the marketplace and indeed what LIFE will demand that we are
determined to raise the standards across the board. Asking us
to lower standards because of this or that is doing a
disservice not only to those looking to employ but also to
those who are seeking employment.
4. You need to know how to communicate effectively to get
ahead and to seize the opportunities that come your way in
life. You can rant all you want, you can request to be removed
from any number of email lists, you can assume that people do
not understand where you are coming from or what challenges
you face but at the end of day you need to be able to
communicate effectively. Formal writing is a skill that is
essential not only in getting a job, but staying in a job. Not
only in starting a company but growing the company.
5. As Crystal says, this is growing problem across many
sectors of society. Remember a good covering letter and well
formatted and presented CV used to be the STARTING point of a
successful application. Now days these are slowly becoming the
determining factor of an application. We think "well at least
this guy can write a letter". Remember not even 10 years ago
when we would be told what font, what font size, what size
margins, what length an application should be submitted in?
Forget that we did not even have computers with word
processors at home - but we found a way to get to a machine
with a word processor and submitted the applications to the
exact specifications. Most of these applications were
unsuccessful but hey you kept pressing on. So we are NOT
asking these applicants to do anything we did not do
ourselves. Perhaps Rahim can share with us the hoops he had to
jump through to become an official Apple Reseller.
Sawa - wacha I end there!