According to official statistics, 96% of young people in Kazakhstan are employed. However, these statistics do not say that each of them have fair wage and a promising job. Unfortunately, more often it is just the opposite. Meruert Zholdybai, a contributor to Manshuq, shared her personal experience of searching for a job and interviewed students from different cities. She also sought advice from an expert on what to do when you have no work experience.
By Meruert Zholdybai
January 24th, 2022
I am 20, and by that age I have gained a diverse work experience: from a promoter – a classical teenager’s side work – to a freelancer and a blogger’s assistant. However, none of my four jobs were official, which means that I worked at my own risk of being let down. I believe that this is why a lot of students have to work as cashiers, couriers or consultants: not in their profession, but officially employed. After all, not everyone live with their parents until they graduate from a university, and they need to provide for themselves somehow.
Job searching has always been stressful for me due to constant rejections. I scrolled through HeadHunter more often than my Instagram feed in an attempt to find a job which did not require at least three years of work experience. On the face of it, I am vigorous and enthusiastic, but nobody hires me.
Where should I gain experience if everyone ignores me as a candidate because of lack of work experience? This is a vicious circle
The most memorable and traumatic work-related experience was my dismissal on the first day of work. I was starting off as a designer and my superior knew that I had no background experience in this sphere. And they decided to dismiss me after my first small mistake. It appeared that I either should have had work experience, or should have worked on par with experienced colleagues from the very first day. I have a lot of questions about this situation and no replies.
Another similarly interesting situation happened when I was hired as an assistant and was asked to perform duties of an SMM specialist: to create a content editorial calendar and designs of posts and to be available 24/7. Actually, these duties must be performed by several people. The situations when employers take advantage of students’ weakness and blatantly exploit them are not rare.
On the one hand, young people might benefit from such situations and have an opportunity to try themselves in various roles. On the other hand, if you are required to perform as an expert without a mentor’s support, you might feel that you are bad at all these jobs. You become a kind of a one man band, knowing everything but superficially.
