By Melina San Martin
Andrew is a 29 years old young engineer from Kigali, Rwanda. He graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Rwanda with second-class honours in 2021; showing his high potential as a young and bright future engineer. Yet he could not secure a job.
“During the job interview I felt afraid, absent minded, I had no idea for each and every question from the panel. Can you believe that I got 13/50, and remember I was the one who believes in myself, I am super competent. But I failed.”
After completing training in soft skills by Engineers Against Poverty and Institution of Engineers Rwanda, Andrew felt equipped with the crucial soft skills required during job applications and interviews to secure his first engineering job.
During the training I knew that no matter if I am the best in formula computation, in theories, in memorizing some chapters, these became useless if my communication is ineffective.
But the training showed us how to communicate formally, how to express myself, how I can prepare for a presentation, how can we prepare our CV the right way of preparing and passing an interview.
I can conclude by thanks again because this not only helped me win a job but also be effective in my job day to day.”
Each year in Rwanda, approximately 125,000 job seekers enter the labour market – far more than the economy can currently absorb. Among them, engineering graduates often face significant challenges in securing employment, largely due to the lack of soft skills needed to succeed at job interviews and thrive in the workplace. Despite the high and rising demand, non-technical skills or ‘soft skills’ are often overlooked in engineering as they are not perceived to be directly associated with an engineer’s core responsibilities, despite being critical for effective performance within businesses.
Engineering courses in Rwanda tend to be heavily focused on technical content, often lacking interpersonal, communication and leadership skills training – all essential to successfully navigate the problem-solving, team-oriented and critical thinking world of today’s engineering landscape.
To tackle this problem, myself and colleagues at Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) partnered with the Institution of Engineers Rwanda (IER) to deliver training short training sessions over eight months in Kigali, Rwanda to 129 graduates and young engineers in communication, leadership and teamwork skills to excel in job applications and secure a successful university-to-work transition. The training programme was supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering through Phase 5 of the Africa Catalyst programme, designed and facilitated by Tasks Africa, as the chosen in-country partner, with UK expertise support from Dr Nike Folayan MBE, Chair and Co-Founder of AFBE-UK.
Using a mixed-methods approach, we assessed the effectiveness, relevance and impact of the training programme on participants’ employability prospects and job placement post training. The evaluation also helped inform how young engineer graduates in Rwanda can best be supported to secure employment.
The results were extremely encouraging. Before training began, fFrom a sample of 50 participants, none received training or guidance on resume writing prior to this training. After the training, participants reported higher confidence levels on communication skills, personal branding, interview and resume preparation post training.
I’m actually applying the skills gained from the training when preparing for interviews.” – training participant.
The training showed improved employment outcomes, with participants applying the skills they had gained during the training in job applications and interviews with several graduates securing jobs as a result. Like Andrew, our young engineer, whose story introduced is at the top of this article.
The shift from traditional lecture-based and rote learning approaches, which are most common within the Rwandan university syllabus, to more participatory hands-on learning techniques proved highly effective to ensure a quick uptake of written and oral communication skills.
Nearly 80% of survey respondents were highly satisfied with the training; many citing how they enjoyed the hands-on and interactive format of the sessions. Trainers were highly praised for their engaging methods as well as their assessment techniques which focused on competency-based rather than the traditional knowledge-based summative assessments. Giving proof to concept for a proven successful alternative of more participatory and practical training to graduates to compliment the theoretical engineering knowledge leading to increased employment readiness.
Collaborating with higher education institutions to promote the uptake of soft skills earlier in the learning pipeline is essential to secure a successful university-to-work transition.
I liked the way they inspired us. They motivated us to become the best professional engineers, and they also showed us that reaching our goals is a journey. In short, these trainings opened our eyes—it’s not too late to learn or to follow your dreams.– training participant.
A welcome next step would be to build a community of practice or graduate network to offer mentorship and professional development opportunities to sustain and expand the impact of this initiative and offering similar training to mid-level engineering professions to further increase the impact.
Engineering career readiness remains a pressing issue in Rwanda but our training proved to be a successful way to help improve engineering graduate employability. The evaluation confirmed that soft skills training focused on communication, leadership, and teamwork equips young engineers with the tools and confidence required to succeed in interviews and progress in their careers, improving youth employability. Furthermore, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 recognises the vital role of STEM education in accelerating Africa’s development with investment in soft skills required to harness this potential.