• Workers marching on Labour Day

By Sycorax Tiyesa Ndhlovu –
As competition on the labour market gets stiffer than ever before, it is important to assess yourself how marketable you are on the same labour market or else you might be spending too much time celebrating the past glory which has been overtaken by new competitive victories.
While some employees can have job security with some employers for some time, assuming that your current employer won’t be there tomorrow, it is important to assess how marketable you are to get another job on the competitive labour market.
Regardless of the results one gets from such an assessment, such an assessment can rekindle the need to study further in one’s academic or professional discipline with a view to keep abreast with competitive labour market situation.
Being marketable on the labour market also demands acquiring relevant experience and skills in one’s respective academic or professional field.
It can also require getting extra qualifications which give an added advantage to your current qualifications, experience and skills.
The purpose of this article is to remind our esteemed readers of the importance of always having a competitive edge in line with the growing stiff competition on the labour market.
It aims at showing our readers who are supposed to share such information with their close associates that gaining high academic and  or professional achievements, sound experience and skills is not restricted to only one employer  for the whole career life; but can be achieved through working with a good number of employers where one can cross-pollinate one’s knowledge, experience and skills with such employers and many workmates.
To demonstrate such a strategy in generating enough academic or professional knowledge, experience and skills, one can use the appointment of Mizinga Melu to the position of chief executive of Barclays Africa Regional Management; the position she will executive from  October 1, 2014 until further notice(Zambia Daily Mail: 10/9/2014.2).
Analysing the brief profile of Ms Melu, one discovers that she has worked in senior challenging positions with some banking institutions in the past. It is reported that she worked for Absa in March last year as a Managing director of NBC Tanzania where she built a strong team leading to positive change in that business. It is also reported that previously Ms Melu held numerous responsibilities at Standard Chartered Bank Zambia and other banking institutions.
With an MBA from Henley Management School, it is reported that her business managerial skills at whatever positions she  held had been impressive.
Congratulations Ms Melu; and wishing you the best in your another new and challenging position.
While some workers can have similar qualifications and work record or better, this article is using Ms Melu’s profile just to show how hard work both in academic and or professional achievements; and in each position one is offered; and in the process acquiring sound experience and skills can help one to propel to greater heights in one’s career.
Like few others such as Prof. Nkandu Luo, Dr Maureen Mwanawasa, Ms Melu is one of the female career development models who should be emulated not only by most females but also by most males as their career track record are impressive and admirable.
It is only when one has achieved high academic and professional qualifications with sound experience and skills that one can be highly marketable on the competitive labour market.
Therefore, the critical lessons one can draw from such a case study is the importance of acquiring relevant academic and or professional qualifications in one’s career. One should also work hard while in a certain position to prove one’s ability to deliver expected results in that position. In executing duties in one’s current job, one should also acquire relevant knowledge, experience and skills which add value to one’s former knowledge, experience and skills.
To achieve this, each employee should aim at being a team player. Team playing while in employment helps one to cross-pollinate one’s current knowledge, experience and skills with those of other members of the team in an organisation.
Such an approach in managing one’s employment with a specific employer helps one to increase one’s knowledge, experience and skills in one’s career life.
This means that at every stage, one increases his or her knowledge, experience and skills more than ever before.
This process is highly beneficial if one works with different workmates with different academic and or professional levels with various experiences and skills.
In short, when one works with different workmates with different academic and professional qualification levels, experience and skills; especially after working with different employers, one is highly exposed in his or her career life.
Such exposure facilitates being elevated to senior and top management levels in any organisation. It also facilitates one’s impressive performance in related positions with any employer. This is what Ms Melu and others have achieved in their career life so far.
From such analysis, one can see that the more one works with different organisations and with different workmates; the more one gains more professional knowledge, experience and skills; and the more one becomes more marketable on the labour market.
Adding further academic and or professional qualifications such as an MBA and others to such sound practical knowledge, experience and skills facilitates one being highly marketable on the competitive labour market.
This is not a short-term achievement. It takes time, hard work, sacrifice and discipline. But With determination, one reaches a stage when one is highly marketable even on the competitive labour market.
It is against this background that new graduates and those who just joined the working class should know that rising to top positions in an organisation can be a slow and cumbersome process.
It is only when one has acquired sound practical knowledge, experience and skills that one can be considered for elevation to senior or to top management position.
This is because, in organisations with a purpose, it is only those workers who can genuinely contribute to adding value to an organisation who are, firstly, employed in that organisation; and secondly, who are promoted to senior or top management positions.
It is believed that such workers contribute to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of an organisation or help steer an organisation to smooth operations, expansion and with greater profits than ever before.
Therefore, it is imperative to build more capacity for one to be highly marketable on a competitive labour market. This is what Ms Melu and others have been and are still doing in their respective career lives.
Additionally, to achieve such competitive edge on the a competitive labour market, one should have a clear purpose and career goal in life. Such a purpose and goal in life influence one to work hard with high levels of discipline and sacrifice in both academic and professional achievements; and in any employment.
What is interesting these days is that many training institutions exist from where one can choose a career to train in. While some of these training institutions offer residential training, some offer distance education while others offer online training.
Whatever mode of training one chooses, what is important is how one applies oneself in such a training.
Assuming that all training institutions are genuine and therefore offer high quality education, the more one applies himself or herself in any mode of training, the more one gains sound academic and or professional knowledge in that field of study.
It is such sound knowledge in one’s field of study that opens up more doors to more good jobs on a seemingly competitive labour market.
Realising such a process to being highly marketable on a competitive labour market, it is important to start studying further in your respective field. There is no one who can say: ‘I have reached a climax or a ceiling in my field of study.’
If by any means you feel you have reached a climax in your field of study, you can also add some other supporting qualifications or experience or skills to it.
For example, if you have a full Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or Master of Science (MSc) in Mechanic  or in Civil Engineering, one can add a qualification in Project Management or do some course in Business Administration to support your current qualifications, experience and skills.
This will mean that while your friends just have a full ACCA, MSc, or whatever, you will be more marketable on the competitive labour market because in addition to a full ACCA, MSc, etc, you will also have additional and supporting qualifications such as Project Management and or Business Administration certificate, Diploma or another degree.
From such an example of how to make yourself different from others with additional and supporting qualifications, one can discover that one becomes highly marketable with many employers on the labour market.
Therefore, always assess yourself on how marketable you are on the labour market; and do the right thing to ensure that you always have a competitive advantage on a seemingly competitive labour market.
The author is a trainer and career coach.
Contact: Cell: 0976/0977 450151
E-mail: sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk