In Ghana, 90% of tertiary graduates are unable to find jobs in the 1st year after graduation. My first job aims at repositioning National Service, a 1-year mandatory program instituted by the government, to serve as a career launchpad for tertiary graduates in Ghana. The accelerator, which runs for 6 months, would support 30 tertiary graduates to build the necessary soft skills that can empower them to win in their first job (their National service) land their second job and rewrite the statistics.

As part of the process, we developed a recruitment process and screened over 200 applicants. As a pilot phase, we shortlisted 30 of the participants who were then invited to a launch to initiate a program. We built working groups that handled the development of a curriculum, engagement of speakers, logistics, and monitoring of the program.

Our short-term goal is to ensure that 100% of the active participants are able to secure their second job within 3 to 6 months after their national service ends by using the skills that they have been exposed to.

In the long term, we seek to automate the delivery of the skills-building program and scale it to accommodate 1000s of early career professionals who graduate and join the national service scheme annually

The active participation rate has been around 60% with 4 training events completed so far. Topics treated include Resourcefulness, Culture Management and Conflict Resolution, Problem-Solving and Critical thinking and Building an effective CV. Currently, we have our professional branding and job-hunting series ongoing. So far, one fellow has secured a job offer. Another fellow has secured an interview slot.

Our collaborators include Career Wheel Limited, Mande, BrandUp Guys, Coalition for Positive Impact and codePhactory