I heard this young lady, Malwandla Hadebe, got a call from Sasol after her pictures of attracting a job street-beggar-like went viral. I hope they offer her employment.
Let’s try digesting the following perspective, just to see if it fits.
Obviously unemployment in the country is a serious and immediate challenge. A picture like this colours the severity and unfairness of the situation, i.e. engineering graduates having to beg for jobs – beggar-like.
As society we feel emotional, sympathetic and helpless.
Maybe let’s look at the picture without the helplessness… This lady is a genius. She marketed herself good
- She marketed herself and went viral by mixing two worlds or demographics that make an oxymoron (for lack of a better description): i.e. begging (associated with helplessness) and university-engineering-graduate (associated with highly-sought-after-value)
- Add to the pot a demographic of ‘societal sympathy’ and virality is ignited
- Any company that offers her employment in the midst of this virality gets ‘societal favour’ or call it PR. Thus all parties win as everybody looks good: employer, society and the lady.
Give the lady RESPEK for her genius. The normal ways of landing a job (sending CV’s, going to companies, etc) weren’t working. So she upped the ante and threw in a more ‘dramatic’ manoeuvre. She’s a high thinker and risk taker.
All the best to her and all unemployed graduates.
Dear graduate, learn how to market yourself. Attract opportunities to yourself.
By Tiisetso Maloma (Tiisetso is an entrepreneur, devised EBC Business Model, and author of 3 books: The Anxious Entrepreneur, Forget The business Plan, Use This Short Model and Township Biz Fastrack)
