ictcollege.org

Knock until employers open

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:25:37 +0000

Knock until employers open
Updated 15 hr(s) 6 min(s) ago
Tania Ngima

One of my young cousins was lamenting how he had sent out 300 resumes and job applications and did not receive a single response.

Everyone searching for a job has sometime or other felt the rejection that comes with getting the ‘regret’ letter.

Though it may be easy to give up and settle into a comfort zone; that is not the easiest way to grow in your career.

You need to keep on knocking until a suitable employer opens a door for you. Here are tips to ensure to do not stay in a rut.

Optimism

Whether you’re looking for a new job because you’ve been laid off or you are hoping to skip from your current one, you will need quite a dose of optimism to start with.

Chances are low that your first application will lead to an interview or that the interview will lead to a job posting.

However, the more you apply for jobs and go for interviews, the better you can learn about different organisations and their cultures, the more confident you will learn to handle yourself in an interview and the kind of questions to expect and how to answer them. Think of every interview or experience as a learning process.

Goals

Be clear about what you’re looking for and what you can settle for at worst.

Do you want to change the employer, or are you thinking of seeking out opportunities in a new career? Is your immediate concern just a paycheck that will pay your house rent and save you from starvation?

Do you want a job that has the same parameters as the last one you held or are there certain aspects you want to garner, for instance, flexible time as opposed to a nine to five?

Networks

Networking has become an invaluable tool in the 21st century. Talk to people you know in the industry you want to get into and ask them if you could mail them your CV in case anything comes up.

Look out for postings on recruitment websites and contact recruitment agencies. Find a good, reliable one that won’t charge you too much money.

Scout through the classified pages of the local dailies for vacancies. When sending out resumes to organisations where you don’t have contacts, avoid doing it blindly.

Chances are that if you find out the name and the title of the person in the human resources office in charge of recruitment, your CV has a better chance of getting seen by the right person.

Take a break

Every once in a while, take a break from sending out resumes and waiting for emails and responses.

Take your mind off the job hunt by taking up an easy sport like walking or spending time with friends and family. Do things that will help keep your mind off stressing about the job hunt; this will rejuvenate you enough to forge ahead.

Create some sort of structure whereby you only check your designated email for resumÈ responses once a day; this will be easier on the psyche than checking your address ten times only to find nothing each time.

Volunteer some of your free time to an activity that you enjoy but hadn’t had the time for. If it’s something you can put on your CV to show you were not just sitting back or lazing, the better.

Let your CV become your ambassador

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 03:52:40 +0000

Let your CV become your ambassador

I am a student at the Kenya Polytechnic University College. I am about to complete a diploma in electrical engineering. How do I do a CV that will stand out above the rest? — Paul

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Your first job in the market could come in the form of either a management trainee or a craft level position. Either way, you have to position yourself well to be considered for employment.

Definitely at your level, you don’t have work experience to confirm that you have practised some of the theory you have studied. Maybe you have a few months of industrial attachment.

This is against the fact that your potential employers may not have the information they may need to ascertain how well you undertook your training and how your knowledge could transform into effective practical application.

And even if you could demonstrate some of these by your grades, present-day employers will be equally keen on your personal attributes.

This is about your orientation, disposition, mindset, and your sense of purpose with respect to the job on the table.

These can only be articulated in an oral interview. To get to this point, your CV needs to charm the prospective employer so that you get to the interview list.

For a fresh graduate, a good CV needs to address the odds that face you. It should have a clear title followed by specification of personal details.

Thereafter, include a career objective. This should describe your personal vision. Most job applicants prefer not to specify the kind of organisations they aspire to work for out of the fear that it could keep away employers who feel incompatible with the applicant’s ambitions.

Yet that omission could also portray you as a job seeker with no specific target in professional development. Winning career objectives should describe what you see yourself accomplishing as a professional.

The next details to put in your CV are the academic qualifications. It is important that the format be consistent for all the qualifications.

The appropriate format should stress your qualifications above the name of the institution and the dates.

It is equally important at this level to mention your training results, including any awards you may have won out of the projects undertaken.

Where necessary, and particularly when the target job lays more emphasis on a particular unit or module that you studied, list them all, beginning with the ones that would market you the most.

Similarly in the next stage, include all the internship opportunities you have undertaken, highlighting the responsibilities and the projects undertaken. It may also be necessary to list other leadership roles that you may have played, including membership to clubs and professional bodies.

The last two sections on the CV are your extracurricular interests and hobbies, and the referees.

The organisation of your CV should be shown by the consistency of your font type and size, and style of presentation. It should be possible to pick the level of importance of any piece of data through your presentation.?

Garissa, eastern and central Africa’s safest town

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:55:07 +0000

* Where is ICT located?
Along Garissa Road 9 KM from Thika Town just 2km from the Army Barracks after passing the area called Landless.

http://www.ictcollege.org/web/courses/faq/

By SAMMY CHEBOI
Posted Monday, June 14 2010 at 21:35

Insecurity-hit Nairobi has lessons to learn from the safest town in East and Central Africa — Garissa. It has been described by the International Police as the safest town in the region, yet Garissa, the seat of North Eastern Province, is legendary as Kenya’s trouble spot. Located 380 kilometres north-east of Nairobi, the town is the gateway to the expansive province.

In days gone by, nobody could venture into the town without security escort. In fact, Ukasi Centre, located on the Mwingi-Garissa highway, carried the heavy symbolism of the divide between the so called Northern Frontier District and “Kenya”. Here, vehicles had to be kept for hours before being escorted to Garissa in a convoy as the region became synonymous with banditry.

That’s no longer the case, and the town could well be a model of how cattle rustling-prone areas of North Rift and Upper Eastern can be rescued. Perhaps, what has not changed is the harsh climatic condition. And the landscape. As one descends on the smooth road down the high ground overlooking the town, buildings dot the undulating valley that hosts the town, giving a spectacular view.

The mighty River Tana offers great relief from the scorching heat and gives a welcoming feel, a prelude to the peace that any visitor is assured of across the bridge. Choking under decades of sectarian fights and the hallucination of secessionist struggles right from the colonial days, the province and its headquarters has undergone an improbable metamorphosis.

But Kenyans in other provinces are yet to come to grips with this refreshing reality, even as high profile delegations from neighbouring countries have been to this region to share the experience. The latest such team to be hosted early this year by the Garissa Peace and Development Committee (GPDC) was a delegation from Uganda.

“This is the most peaceful province in the whole country. The biggest problem is perception, particularly when you mention the word north — North Eastern Province, North Rift,” says James ole Seriani, the provincial commissioner. “North Eastern is a victim of geographical confusion. At times people call me to find out how we are doing when banditry cases are reported in places like Isiolo and Marsabit. These places are in Eastern Province,” says the administrator, adding that there has not been any single cattle rustling incident recorded in the province in the past 20 years.

This contrasts sharply with other regions choking under the weight of insecurity fuelled by small and light weapons in the hands of civilians. In North Rift, for instance, a more deadly form of cattle-rustling in which raids are well planned and executed with military precision characterised by modern weapons, has raised concern. This has resulted in the current exercise to mop up illegal arms.

But this approach may not be enough and there could be a few lessons that can be borrowed from the experience of NEP. Kenya’s colonial government enacted several laws specifically targeting the north. The Outlying District Ordinance of 1902 effectively declared the Northern Frontier District (NFD — made up of the present-day districts of Wajir, Mandera, Ijara, Garissa, Isiolo, Moyale and Marsabit) a closed area; movement in and out was only possible under a special pass.

The Special Districts (Administration) Ordinance of 1934, together with the Stock Theft and Produce Ordinance of 1933, gave the colonial administrators extensive powers of arrest, restraint and detain residents, and also to seize the property of “hostile tribes”, effectively legalising collective punishment of tribes and clans for the offences of their members.

Residents saw this as a betrayal, and boycotted the 1963 independence elections. Matters were not helped by the ensuing Shifta War. Somalia broke diplomatic relations with Britain and supported the secessionists. Kenya’s independent government was firm in its resolve not to cede an inch of its territory. Two weeks after independence, it declared a state of emergency over the NFD, which lasted for close to 30 years.

Ironically, the architect of the present-day peace, former PC Mohamud Ali Saleh, used tactics similar to the colonial policy. Known as The Saleh Strategy, the peace drive involved holding responsible, any provincial administrator in whose area of jurisdiction banditry is reported.

“Different clans were fighting over issues like theft or rape. There was no basis for the costly clashes,” recalls Mr Osman Abdi, the chairman of GPDC. Launched in 2001, the strategy involved using clans to apprehend criminals among them by confiscating their livestock, especially camels, to force cooperation with law enforcers.

“Once you detain a Somali’s camels, he will submit easily,” Mr Abdi says. Aware of the risks of illegal arms among the population, the Ministry of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, through the Armed Violence Reduction Project, run by the Arid Lands Resource Management Project, has been engaged in a mop-up exercise since 2004.

“We believe that the history of conflict is partly resource-based and can be resolved by addressing issues surrounding sharing of water and pasture,” says Abdi Mohammed Abdi, the project’s regional coordinator. In its campaigns, the project has particularly targeted women to help persuade their men and sons to give up the gun for peace. “What we tell women is that they don’t participate in clan feuds because they don’t have guns, but their men do,” Mr Abdi says.

Working through district and divisional peace committees, the project also promotes cross-border dialogue between the residents and their neighbours from Ethiopia and Somalia. Such efforts have seen the recovery of a Ministry of Education vehicle stolen by Somalia militias in Mandera last year.

Now the Somalia conflict is posing new threats to the region as militia fights spill over into Kenya as happened when Al Shabaab militants pursuing fleeing Hizbul Islam rivals injured and abducted some Kenyans in Dadajabula Village, 200 kilometres south of Wajir Town. “We initiate dialogue between elders on either side of the border. We insist that the border shall remain closed unless stolen property is returned,” Mr Abdi said.

This way, despite the porous border with lawless Somalia and the close to 300,000 Somali refugees in Dadaab, the region rarely records highway robberies. Talking of infrastructure, there are no roads. Dusty, sandy and badly damaged donkey paths, stretching for miles on the flat lands, are what passes for roads in the entire province. The only true road is a 10-kilometre stretch from Garissa to Modika Centre that is the junction of the roads to Wajir and Dadaab.

Recently, the Nation embarked on a gruelling 10-hour 650-kilometre journey from Garissa to Kotulo Centre on the Garissa-Mandera “highway”. The “roads” are littered with trucks that have broken down, their owners forced to seek for help hundreds of kilometres away.

The endless stretch of “road”, coupled with non-existent lakes formed by sun mirages and temperatures gravitating towards 35 degrees centigrade makes any visitor rue the decision to venture into this forgotten land. “This region needs functional roads, communication and electricity to unlock its potential. As long as these are lacking, our efforts to address pressing issues will be undermined,” Mr Seriani says.

Informed youths are better off

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:39:49 +0000

As the world evolves, we have moved from being illiterate to literate; from being uninformed to informed.
Young people who read novels and use computers are making their world a better place.
They cannot be compared to ordinary, unexposed youth.Their thoughts and views are different as they see the world from a broader perspective and are more open-minded.
An enlightened youth’s world is enriched with knowledge and big dreams.
Some parents think novels `spoil’ their teenagers. That is not the case.
Novels inspire, inform and reflect what happens in the world.
Step into the informed world by picking up a good novel or visiting the Internet and get exposed to the real world.

—Juliet Macharia, Misikhu Girls’ High School, Webuye.

ICT Courses

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:04:48 +0000

Our Courses

There are a range of routes you can take to reach your goals. We provide education from Pre-entry to Foundation Degree level, so whatever your level, we have a course to meet your needs. All of our courses allow you to start at a point that suits you and your qualifications.

We aim to offer quality career guidance and ensure high quality graduates in Pharmacy, Business, Information Technology, Community Development, Engineering and other related disciplines.

Our Core Objective
To produce professionals for the fast changing and complex global job market in the various certificate, diploma and vocational studies that are competent and of high integrity.

We are living in a progressive world where as never before we are experiencing new technology advancement. Hence, the job market now demands more qualified, knowledgeable, experienced and high integrity employees.

It is our endeavor at International Centre of Technology to meet this current market demand by offering holistic, quality and affordable further education and vocational skills training.
At ICT we have seen our students perform well in the national examinations and perform excellently in the job market.

Our Core Activities

* To provide a conducive learning environment by ensuring discipline and class attendance.
Performing student orientation for new students in the various disciplines.
* Encouraging students to be self starters by guiding them on career choices and job opportunities in the market.
* Ensuring prompt registration of students with the various examination bodies locally and internationally i.e. KASNEB, KNEC, ICM, ABE, ABMA..
* Overseeing both local and external examinations and also co-ordinating the issuing of college transcripts and certificates.
* Assist students in finding attachment/internships.

Courses

* Diploma/Certificate in Sales Management and Marketing
* Certificate in Business Information Systems (BIS)
* Certificate in Business Management
* Diploma in Business Management
* Single and Group Certificate in Secretarial Studies
* Pharmacy Assistant Certificate (ICT)
* Certificate in Information Technology (ICT)
* ATC, CPA, & ICTT
* Certificate/Diploma in Automotive Engineering (ICT)
* Certificate in Electrical Engineering (ICT)
* Diploma in Community Development and Social Work
* Bridging courses
* Fire and First Aid Training
* Disaster Management
* Visit ICT Fire and First Aid Training website>>>>

Applications for admission

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:58:47 +0000

Thika Applications for admission are invited Diploma and Certificate programmes

May 2010 intake now open

www.ictcollege.org

www.ictfire.com

About ICT

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:40:35 +0000

ICT College

International Centre of Technology is a centre of higher learning dedicated to offering quality further education at affordable cost and offers the choice of part or full time study to suit individual requirements.

ICT is equipped with modern computer facilities with use of internet/email for all students, power-point technology for state of the art learning, well researched study materials, library, dining and hostel accommodation situated in a peaceful, quiet and exquisite environment.

We are confident that the programs we offer have the ability to place students in the job market or provide the skills needed for self-employment.

ICT’S aim is to be a centre of excellence, offering holistic, quality and affordable education and training to meet the needs of business and industry.
We believe in delivering quality courses that are relevant and effective in meeting the needs of business and industry through the use of modern technology, a pre-requisite to socio-economic growth of a country.

ICT provides a conducive, innovative international learning environment equipped with modern facilities and resources.
Our philosophy is to foster the intellectual, physical and spiritual development of the individual and prepare students to become effective and responsible citizens in a multi-cultural community.

A sponsorship program caters for bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds who would not normally have the chance to continue with further education due to financial restraints on the family.

International Perspective
International Centre of Technology works in collaboration with several national and international institutions to provide our students with local and overseas qualifications. We seek to expand opportunities for academic, professional qualifications and vocational skills through scientific and technological fields.

Our Approach
The use of comprehensive training programs and student centred learning enables ICT to offer up-to-date quality education through internationally recognized education bodies.

ICT delivers quality courses that are relevant and effective in meeting the needs of the students to enable them to progress into professional and technical employment, commence Bachelor Degrees or become self employed and is registered with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology as well as externally recognized bodies, which include: ICM, ABE, ABMA, CITY & GUILDS and KNEC.

COMMUNITY FIRE SAFETY (CFS) AT ICT FIRE & RESCUE

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:51:40 +0000

Community Fire at ICT

In September last year the government of Kenya published the Fire Safety Policy.

This was a proposal to reform the fire safety legislation in Kenya through a regulatory body. The main purpose was to simplify, rationalise and consolidate the law with respect to fire safety in buildings in use but it will also provide an opportunity to introduce others powers and duties for the fire service including placing a statutory duty upon fire authorities to conduct community fire safety work.

This move is welcomed by many Kenyans who have in the recent past witnessed many fire incidences.

WHAT IS COMMUNITY FIRE SAFETY?
The term community fire safety (CFS) refers to a range of activities conducted both locally and nationally by ICT Fire and Rescue to educate and assist the Kenyan public in making themselves safe from fire. This is a sole initiative of the ICT Fire and Rescue to help the community in equipping them with the relevant information on fire safety.

ICT Fire & Rescue has efficient arrangements for providing education, information, publicity and encouragement in respect of the steps to be taken to prevent fires in community and to prevent death or injury to any person being caused by such a fire.
ICT Fire and Rescue has maintained a strategic overview of CFS and has created a Department of Community Based Fire Safety (CBFS) to run promotional campaigns in fire safety and first aid and to provide educational resources for local community groups to engage in fire safety and first aid training.

Locally, ICT Fire and Rescue is involved in a wide range of activities including: work in schools, those organizations at greater risk from fire; forming a multi-agency partnership with organizations to reduce fire risks and a range of publicity and compaign efforts. ICT Fire and Rescue is currently working closely with the followings organizations and schools:

Primefuels Kenya Ltd
Wilmar Agro Ltd
Syngenta & Pollen (K) Ltd
Frigoken (K) Ltd
Brookside (K) Ltd
Mt. Kenya Academy Junior School
Mt. Kenya Academy Senior School
St. Paul’s Gatuanyaga Secondary School
Munyu Mixed Secondary School
Munyu Girls Secondary School
St. Mark Secondary School
Ngoliba Boys Secondary School
Kiboko Secondary School.

WHY CFS?
The concept of community of CFS was embraced when ICT Fire & Rescue in its operations to the schools and the community at large saw the need for fire safety requirement by the Kenyan society. Many fires have broken out and few people have an idea on how to handle these fires. Most fires in homes are preventable if the behaviour of the householders could be changed. People need to be educated in how to make themselves safe from fires in their homes and have a safe house strategy.

ICT Fire and Rescue therefore has devoted itself to ensuring that the community is well informed and that the organizations within the community also participate in this CFS programme. Organizations should ensure that resources are devoted to the CFS to build a strong society in fire safety operations.?

www.ictfire.com

Message from the Principal

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:07:30 +0000

We extend a warm welcome to you and thank you for your interest in International Centre of Technology (ICT). ICT is a modern college with the latest technology and we have every reason to believe that students will live up to our expectations by maximizing the use of our facilities to enable them to join the competitive job market both locally and internationally.

Our lecturers and technical support staff are knowledgeable and experienced who are professionals in their respective field.

ICT aspires to train well rounded, disciplined and open minded men and women who will enter the job market to become the agents of change amongst their communities and in Africa.

It is our hope ICT college graduates will also become the pillars of society by promoting unity and celebrating human life and everything positive it has to offer.

We congratulate the students who sat for the ABE examination in December 2009.

They have emerged to be the best students’ world wide that sat for the ABE examination and have been awarded a full scholarship for diploma level.

This success shows how our lecturers are dedicated to our student’s academic achievement.

ICT have a variety of market oriented courses to suit various groups of student with different grades. You can choose the career of your choice or seek guidance from our experienced career guidance lecturer.

Thank you for your interest in International Centre of Technology. We look forward to meeting you in the future.

For those interested in touring the College, maywe encourage you to contact our us on:
P o Box 3612 – 01002 Thika TEL: 254 20 2022 694; Mobile 254 720 010 720 or on email admin@ictcollege.org