Nearly 90% of Akilah alumnae find jobs within six months of graduation. Akilah’s intensive focus on career development sets it apart from other higher learning institutions in the region.

Earlier this year, Akilah brought in MindSky, one of Rwanda’s leading job platforms, to run its Career Department. MindSky is open to all job seekers in Rwanda and connects talented professionals with the country’s fastest-growing industries. Now, Akilah students and alumnae have access to MindSky’s expertise and job-search technology.

Hellen Konyango is a Talent Advocate at MindSky.

MindSky helps students identify and pursue their chosen career paths and provides training in everything from answering tough interview questions to CV writing.

Career Coaching

MindSky Talent Advocates have individual check-ins with each student from Akilah’s graduating class to kick off the internship or job search. Together, they map out the student’s immediate career ambitions as well as her long-term aspirations.

Hellen Konyango, a Talent Advocate at MindSky, meets with Akilah students three times a week for career coaching sessions.

“When we know who they are and what they want to do, we can engage in a much more focused way with employers,” Hellen says. “We will know who to target and how. We give them exposure and access to all the job opportunities out there. But we also equip them to secure the job themselves through strong CVs, professional statements, and interview skills.”

Part of Hellen’s role is to provide feedback and tips to help students perform well in job interviews.

“We guide them to give unique answers to the hardest and most common questions they’ll face in job interviews. We ask them: ‘Why should a company hire you? Describe a problem you encountered at work and how you fixed it. Tell us about your strengths and weaknesses.’ We make sure that the girls are ready with personalized, qualified answers, if and when these questions come up,” Hellen explains.

Standing Out in the Job Search

MindSky also takes Akilah students through a variety of workshops to help them pursue opportunities successfully. Students are expected to create CVs and user profiles on MindSky’s job platform that reflect their unique skills and match their career ambitions.

“A lot of job seekers tend to use the same adjectives when asked to describe themselves: cheerful, hard-working, team player,” Hellen says. “But that doesn’t say much about who you really are. We tell the students to highlight the top skills that make them unique.”

“A lot of job seekers tend to use the same adjectives when asked to describe themselves: cheerful, hard-working, team player. But that doesn’t say much about who you really are.”

“This way, the student from Information Systems will tell us about her skills in coding, while the Entrepreneurship student highlights her people skills, and the Hospitality student focuses on her talents in marketing. We want them to stand out,” Hellen adds.

MindSky’s staff, pictured, is committed to helping students prepare for job and internship interviews.

Turning Weakness Into a Strength

Gaelle Girishema and Allen Ingabire will graduate from Akilah this summer and are prepping for their internship interviews with Hellen. According to both students, the career guidance has prepared them to present themselves professionally to employers.

“It’s helpful to know how to best showcase our unique skills so we stand out. We tend to be nervous to talk about our weaknesses and only focus on our strengths, but MindSky tells us how to talk about our weaknesses in a constructive way so we give an honest impression of who we are. They help us to be different from other candidates, to be unique,” Allen says.

“MindSky tells us how to talk about our weaknesses in a constructive way so we give an honest impression of who we are.”

The MindSky team also encouraged Gaelle to tailor her job search to companies she was interested in.

“It’s really helpful to know how to make our professional statements in a way that matches the jobs we are applying for. I study Information Systems and would like to work in networking. MindSky is advising me on how to do research on companies I’d like to work for and how to approach them and shape my professional profile accordingly.”

‘Akilah Students Show Determination’

According to Hellen, Akilah students stand out is their of level of determination and ambition.

“Across all three diploma programs, they have so much drive. This is not just a safety net for them, they take their careers so seriously. The Entrepreneurship students always look at options to start their own businesses. A lot of our Burundian students are always telling me how they want to use their skills to go back and build their country. It gives me hope to see that they are looking towards their future with such determination.”