Your Career Is Not a Ladder: a Careers-Day Talk on Career Development, and Presenting a Goal with a Plan

Good morning, everyone. My name is Claudine Mukamana, and I look after the training of staff at a company in Kigali. Your head teacher asked me to talk about careers, so let me begin by taking one idea away from you.

Many of you imagine a career as a ladder. You climb onto the bottom rung when you leave school, and you climb, rung by rung, in one direction, until you retire. For some people, long ago, that was true. For most of you, it will not be. The jobs you do at forty may not exist yet, and some jobs that exist today will have changed beyond recognition. So I want you to replace the ladder with a different picture: a footpath across the hills. You choose each stretch of it. Sometimes you go straight on, sometimes you go sideways to reach a better path, and now and then you stop to look at the map again. Career development simply means walking that path on purpose.

How do you prepare for a path you cannot see? I suggest you build three things, starting this term.

The first is skills that travel: skills you can carry from one job to another. Speaking and writing clearly. Working in a team. Solving a problem you have never met before. Using digital tools. When I interview young people, I am not only asking, "What did you study?" I am asking, "What can you do, and can you show me?"

Which brings me to the second thing: evidence. Every club you join, every responsibility you accept, every project you finish is evidence. But evidence you cannot remember is no use. So keep a simple learning log: one page a month, three lines. What did I do? What did I learn? What would I do differently? In three years you will have thirty-six entries, and a personal statement will almost write itself.

The third thing is people. Find someone a few steps ahead of you on a path that interests you: a nurse, an electrician, an accountant, a farmer who runs a cooperative. Don't ask them for a job. Ask them for fifteen minutes, and ask good questions. What does a normal day look like? What do you wish you had known at my age? Most adults are delighted to be asked. And when someone gives you feedback, don't defend yourself. Ask, "What should I do differently?" That one question will teach you more than any textbook.

Let me finish with something practical. Before you leave this hall, choose one small thing you will do this week. Join one club. Write your first log entry. Ask one adult for fifteen minutes. A path across the hills is walked one step at a time, and the first step is the only one you need to take today. Thank you.