Good day,
Your article states that South Africa is in need of skilled professionals but
my problem is that finding work through agencies is made impossible, as they
only see qualifications and disregard experience.
There are even agencies out there that recommend specialists to leave South
Africa.
I am fortunate to be in the position where I have both qualifications and work
experience. However, the greatest difficulty I have is with the recruiting
agencies that either do not understand how to market skilled professionals, or
just want to make a quick buck with little or no regard to a proper placement.
I have a very broad technical background in IT with 15 years' work experience,
ranging from service delivery/management (ITIL) over information security (ISO,
IT risk management, PCI standards and digital encryption) straight through to
IT infrastructure management, with some IT project management.
For the last 2.5 years I have gone through the standard application to
advertised vacancies and registration on the most popular job sites, but have
not found a contact person or recruitment agency that can help me proactively
market my skills to a potential employer that can make use of my skills.
Below I have listed the most typical excuses I get to hear, when I am
declined for a position I have applied for:
• Overqualified
• Too technical (for a technical job)
• Too senior (for a senior technical position)
• Too management-orientated (for jobs that originally stated
experience with ISO & PCIDSS)
• Too much management experience
• Stay in the wrong area (northern suburbs versus southern)
• Wrong ethnic background
• Too passionate
At the moment I am struggling with staying motivated due to the continuous
rejections, and I have great doubts about my future here in South Africa.
- Fin24
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