Not a day passes by without a Vacancy Notice being seen in the newspapers.
Some organisations take out a center-spread; others a full page or half a page, and yet others take a quarter-page to tell the entire world that they need people to fill vacant positions in their organisation.
Alternatively, they simply advertise in the classified ads section. It all depends on the organisation and on the number of positions that are vacant.
With the big organisations, the vacancy notice is usually comprehensive, stipulating the job requirements and competencies.
They then specify the educational qualifications, work experience and personal competencies required for the job. With others, it is only the vacant position that is stated.
Then the applicants are asked to apply to a given address; usually it is a postal address.
For some of these jobs, fresh graduates are hardly eligible, as they do not have the requisite work experience.
It is difficult for the fresh school leaver, because without working you cannot gain experience and without work experience you cannot get a job. This leaves the graduates in a quandary.
Do they then have to go to a school of experience to get a job?
Day after day, most job seekers browse the papers for job vacancies. Some apply, whether or not they have the requirements. They believe they could just be lucky.
Some that are qualified do apply, with the self-confidence that they will succeed.
But as the days become weeks, and weeks become months, they despair and try some other vacancies.
With some, they do get invited for an interview, raising hopes of employment.
Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they do not. And the search goes on.
The crowd of jobless people swells every day, despite the plethora of vacancies that fill our daily newspapers.
Could it be that some of these advertised vacancies are just a mirage?
Maybe, some of them are put out just to satisfy the public and donors, while the actual recruitment has already been done behind the scenes.
That is the belief, especially of most job-seekers.
Yet for most organisations, the vacancies are real.
The applicants are invited for an aptitude test, checked out and then taken onboard, if they are found capable.
These are the lucky ones.
But for other jobs, you may need to have somebody to talk to somebody somewhere to pull rank for you.
In the job hunt, it seems as if competence is essential, but a competent candidate has an added advantage if he or she is well connected.
There have been cases of less competent candidates given jobs at the expense of more competent ones.
Employers of labour need competent, well-qualified people to help them keep their businesses on track, but as we see from time to time competence does not always win; other factors come into play.
Indeed, there is more to getting a job than meets the eye!
