Soronko Rotary Girls Coding Project Cohort 4 – Soft Skills Session 1

The soft skill session aims at educating trainees on how they could appropriately build and manage their careers to their best satisfaction. In today’s training session, Miss Josephine Offei, the lead Career Development Advisor at Soronko Academy delivered a presentation on Building and Managing Career Plans. She explained that managing one’s career is crucial in adding value to oneself, increasing one’s wealth, and building the capacity of persons. In identifying one career path it is key to identify what you are passionate about and work towards it. She added that although other unplanned opportunities may come in the way of achieving your career goals it is key to learn new skills from those challenges as these skills would position them well towards their career paths. The trainer taught the students the steps involved in setting up one’s career. These steps included:  developing a long-term-career goal, identifying your passions, getting exposed to other industries, and personality assessment.

During the session Miss Josephine shared her lived experiences of how being exposed to other industries would allow you to make informed choices on the type of career path to take. She advised the trainees to read and research more on the interesting sectors they want to venture into. Leveraging on professional platforms such as LinkedIn would allow them to understand the trends and opportunities within the sector. She concluded by telling them that the success of their career pattern and activities are dependent on the efforts they invest to make it an excellent one. An interactive breakout session was held to allow trainees to identify three things they are good at. This activity helped the trainees to assess their personalities.

The second session had trainees learn the differences between a CV and a Cover Letter. Also, they were trained on how to answer and engage well on interview questions regarding job experiences particularly on instances where they had no job experiences. The lead trainer advised the trainees to tailor their CV to update the current needs and trends of recruiters. In looking at job postings, it is important to research the company to check if the company is actively hiring or the job post is credible. Miss Josephine also encouraged the trainees to be intentional in building a positive online presence in order to increase their visibility to potential investors and recruiters.

Lastly, she encouraged the students to sign up for educational and skills development opportunities as they are moving up on their career paths. She highlighted the relevance of combining soft skills with digital skills training as this very necessary for building life skills for the job market.