Aletta Shikololo
WINDHOEK – Twenty-four-year old Erich Haihambo, a business information honours degree holder and founder of Quality Assurance IT Solutions, an information technology business, is making a living writing curricula vitae (CVs) or résumés, this after a year of frustration of being unemployed.
Haihambo said he found out that the quality of a CV contributes to the chances of getting employed.
“After completing my studies I had been unemployed for a year without being called for an interview or shortlisted even though I applied for more than a 1000 job advertisements. That pushed me to keep changing different designs of the CV or résumé I used to apply with until I realised and got to understand the reason why I was never called for an interview or shortlisted,” he said.
Unemployment forced him to read different articles on the internet about how a CV can play a role towards someone’s unemployment life and that’s how he decided to put an end to his hunt for a job. Haihambo added: “One day when I was doing a research to end my unemployment life style, I followed a link that required me to pay for a license so that I can have my résumé professionally done. It took me about four days hesitating to pay for that license since it was too expensive but that turned out to be an investment in my life after I paid.”
He mentioned that he has an account with an online résumé service called Top Résumé that requires one to pay a certain amount for a subscription of a given period.
“My CV was converted from a four-page to one-page attractive curriculum vitae. The license I paid gave me access to different designs that I first started using to design CVs for all people close to me and it turned out to be a great outcome for them as well, and later I came up with an idea to help fellow Namibians fight unemployment by charging them a little amount that is less than 10% of the amount I paid for the license,” Haihambo said.
“Clients send their current CV to my email and we keep communicating until they are fully satisfied with the service. I give the PDF copy and keep the editable copy and clients are welcome to request me to change their CV anytime for free. I have worked on more than 300 CVs and still have a lot that I am busy working on and IT takes 48 hours to deliver the CV and payments are done electronically and basically that is how I make a living,” he added.
Haihambo urged the youth and the government that the best way for the government to reduce youth unemployment is to keep the economic growth as high as possible.
“The other way to improve labour market outcomes for young unemployment is through targeted programmes that make them job ready and create pathways to employment. Programmes that provide these services to unemployed youth can increase their opportunities to move into work when extra jobs become available. The youth must also try to find ways to create employment instead of being home and waiting on the government to give them jobs,” he told New Era.