Why do some people almost always get the job they want?

When we finished school and started looking for placements (or career pegion holes as my friend used to call them), my cousin and I wrote and posted several letters some unanimous and others in response to adverts. Most if not all of them went unanswered and unacknowledged. After the 100th letter my cousin gave up and vowed not to waste any more money on 'those proud guys'. I too used to get angry since it was rather expensive to even post a single letter.

I only began to understand the issues behind the silence after I visited a recruitment agent who was doing Resume reviews for free (he was a rotaractor). The man took me through my review with the ruthlessness of a nyapara. At the end of the grueling session, my CV was reduced to a mere essay of a primary school kid. I had to do the work all over again. I hated him for being so rough and 'cruel' yet I now look back and love him for being so right. The CV is the marketing tool of a potential employee and its what helps you get that priced interview.

I wouldn't have got my job if I hadn't first got the interview! With hundreds of CVs to whittle down to a shortlist, a recruiter will spend absolutely no more than 30 seconds looking at each individual CV in the first instance. No wonder my CV was finding its way into the dustbin in the initial stages.

Over the years I have learnt that it really does help to drop your pride and seek the help of a professional to write your CV. Some professionals are quite expensive but then again the higher the investment the higher the return. When you want the best, you should be ready to spend.

some of these services are available in the web and you can get your CV reviewed and professionaly rewritten at a small cost. Whats more, you can even get several situational cover letters professionaly done by people who have the talent, training and experience to sell your most valuable brand-You.
Check this out CV Centre

Of Gift Horses

I have just been remembering the somewhat surprising hospitality of the first landlady whose house I ever rented. Actually it wasnt her house, it was a small would be servant quarter for which I paid a whooping 4000 bob a month. The lady was very generous and would invite me to spend some time with her sons. At that time my life was only starting and I had neither a TV nor a tape player. My life was actually very boring.

During those invites sometimes my land lady would cook for her sons and me. I would be given very generous portions of whichever dish she made and all that was good. The only downside to it was that she was a painfully poor cook and I found her chapatis imposible to even chew. They were thick, tasteless and hard and often times I wondered if they were truly cooked. I dreaded the days she would invite me for dinner because I was brought up to understand that it was a bad to look a prize horse in the mouth. Somehow her sons enjoyed her pathetic meals so much that they would ask for a second helping. I kept on wondering how I would tell her without hurting her good heart that she need to up her game. I wished I could get some good cooking recipes somewhere and give her as a present. Only fear was that there was no knowing how she would take it.

I was myself not really a star and could not show her by my example of how good i was with my favorite chicken recipes

So we continued to 'enjoy' the largly impossible cooking. downing every mouthful with a large helping of good laughter and warm atmosphere. If it were today then I would offer her many of the free recipes available and help her put flavor to her good neihborliness.

But Seriously, how do you look a gift horse in the mouth?

Conflicts of interest

Right at the time when one Raila Odinga Amolo was being given ultimatum on the Mau and indeed being threatened that his support from the Rift Valley is gone due to his quest to reforest the largest water reservoir, one good government spokesman was telling Kenyans that the government plans to make our lives better by cutting down trees and clearing 'bushes' to make the city in the sun really a city in the sun. we surely have a government of conflicts! It plants and destroys in equal measure.

But am intrigued by a post by one Mr. Gathara, asking if we indeed require a new constitution. am intrigued because i answered this same question in another forum almost 8 years ago. the priest who was taking us through the session almost excommunicated me from the great catholic church. but i have always held that a constitution to Kenyans is as good as picket fence to a wild bull on heat. People break the current laws with impunity so what will be different?

This Census Thing

I keep on wondering how it is done elsewhere. Doesn't this national census thing stink and look colonial or is it just me? Is it not easier to just make sure every birth and death is registered? then have this data centrally in some good database? Every time i see the census advert, i shudder at the prospect of thugs masquerading as enumerators to terrorize the people. the situation as it is is so bad. thugs will just have a field day. And doesn't anyone else feel like cattle or sheep after being counted and the door marked?