 Thank you so much for staying with us. Time for another segment. Today we talk about career choices. How do you choose what to be when you grow up? Because that's the line that is used. When I grow up, I want to be so-and-so. Personally, when I was asked this question many years ago, who I want to be when I grow up, I used to say I want to be a policeman. I wanted to be a driver. That was in primary. At some point I realized there can be someone else. So what I'm doing today is something that came to me when I was in class 7, but still I was confused. I wanted to be a lawyer and I wanted to be a pilot. I also wanted to be a nurse. So confusion is in that phase. Today we get the story of Mr. Kevin Canisio, also how he chooses career and how he has moved from one stage to another. I also be helped to do this by an HR manager, Jane Mouticia. Good morning and welcome ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. If there's an area that has brought confusion to so many people in this world, he's choosing what they want to be in terms of their career. Others they have passion for something or they are talented or gifted to do something and others would move to a career because of the package, I mean money. If I knew this career has money of course I would do everything for me to be there because I want money, I want to move first. But now how do I get to do that? I begin with you Kevin, what you do today? Actually you tell us who you are and what you are doing and how did you get to choose your career? Okay, good morning viewers. My name is Kevin Canisio Osumba. Currently I'm a business development manager with a UK examination body called ICM. We had a long history in the education career. When I was growing up, actually I had two options. I wanted to become a military officer but at the same time I also wanted to become a priest, a Catholic priest. But I never got that chance unfortunately. When you finish high school you realize the results are out. You've played the December tournament footy ball and everyone has gone back to school. You have to identify what you want to be and unless you identify what you want to be it becomes a challenge. To me the challenge was that her sister was a nurse and her cousin had gone to military and had lost so he was trying to get into police. So I mean between, I'm trying to ask my sister and she's not sure. I'm trying to ask my cousin and she's not sure. So what I did was first of all get half time with myself and half time with myself I decided to start a career. I started washing cars, a place called Ika Gemi there. So from washing cars is when I realized no, this is not my thing because I could interact with the people and they were talking about life after this, life after this. So from the cars I was able to raise money I could wash cars from morning to evening then realized that these cars they were having some, I could see vehicles, music and so on. So now they decide to have technology came in and that's how I... Are you in primary or secondary at that point? At that point, now I had finished form 4. I had finished form 4, I'm looking at because from primary and secondary all your parents wanted us to become a teacher to become a doctor and they're not telling you how to get there. So and for me now and myself I'm looking at can I become a Catholic priest or I was looking at a priest when after the service he's given food there he's given kuku there and greetings so he's having a lot of money and then at the same time also for the purpose of defending myself for wanting to join forces. So that was my desire but after clearing high school I realized no, I've not qualified and to get there it's a process and thus I had to have a meeting with myself and I said, I want to talk to myself and realize what do you want and at that time also my parents had retired so it is you and yourself and that's why I moved from the village from Mumia then came to Nairobi settled at a place called Ikangemi and that's how I started washing cars and to wash cars, interact with people I realized the need for technology at that time I think in 2003 that was when IT was being introduced so I developed the desire to learn more in IT and challenge being fees I think at that time there were no coops could not support the diploma student the only supporting university and here I've missed few marks to get to university so it's like now it is done so I had to have a meeting with myself and that's how I said let me start somewhere and to start somewhere I started washing cars and from washing cars I was able to raise school fees so I could wash cars from the morning to Kenyapoli where I did my diploma in computer engineering after finishing diploma in computer engineering I realized this desire for education and I had an opportunity to join Zitech college and when I joined Zitech college 2007 as a lecturer now in the technical aspect I realized I don't have the knowledge in how to deliver the content I have the content on how to repair a computer to set up a network to pass the message how do you teach it became a challenge but I could thank the institution because now they took us through something called TOT where you are preparing this person to become a trainer so that now you can deliver the message the content that it has and the moment they finish that I realized I have to go back to class so I went to invest of Nairobi and pursued bachel of commerce but still in the line of IT I want you to hold there it has been a journey you went to engineering because you had interest in electronics and being an engineer in that case and then you felt now I think I don't want to be in the field I want to teach how to do this then you went for that exactly here you are in the human resource I also know knowing who you are I know you have quite a profile in what you wanted to be and where you are but maybe you can just mention one bit of how now you came to full realization of what you really want to do and how now you are where you are and then you will address the kind of I don't want to call it confusion but how defining how now do I settle at certain point for me it was kind of different I didn't think I didn't grow up with a lot of challenges in terms of when people see what you want to be what you want to be a BCD maybe because of the kind of that I grew up with I grew up with my grandmother and my grandfather and they were both retired working at home my mother used to stay in a different town I joined them much later and they were medics my parents now so I didn't grow up being asked so when I joined my parents again it was about max they were happy with me being top 3 it was about the exams not what I want to be and that was okay until around when I was in class 7 my dad had a lawyer friend they would come with and my dad admired him for whatever reason so for some reason every time he would come he would start calling me wakiri when they come with him he would be like wakiri kujapa so now he said no saying I want to be and I went to high school and told everybody I want to be wakiri but nobody ever sat me to tell me to be wakiri this is what you need to do so can you imagine I didn't do I majored in the sciences as much as I wanted to be wakiri I didn't do history, I didn't do theories I don't know the languages and all that no one took me ahead to get an English degree I could have gotten if I had been told but my focus was elsewhere the teachers kept saying you have to get straight in sciences and mathematics so my focus was purely on sciences and my interest was in law so when the results came and you were feeding the clusters and I rushed to law and I'm thinking wow genu wajapita English you haven't scored and you haven't passed in Kiswahili so I failed in both languages actually but I'd scored very highly in all the sciences why do I talk about that because again like for those who are in hospital they are listening you have to know that to get to the university even to get to do that particular course that you want because you give and you find that some of them are actually appearing in every cluster if you fail in one it drags you in all the others so I ended up doing BSC BSC general and I majored in biochemistry and chemistry which was not a cup of tea these have been prompted because you have passed in sciences actually I remember when I was called for that it was such a tug of war at home because now my parents were medics my mother is a clinic officer, my mum is a nurse both of them wanted me to do something in medicine so she said you can start your own thing you can open your clinic, you can do a BSD my dad even got for me an admission letter to one of the colleges to go and do lab technician but I was like me there is no way I am going to touch blood, susu and all that I am not going to touch those samples, I am not doing this and I was forced it was serious I was being forced to go and do that particular course luckily I was like no I am not going so father ended up joining the University of Nairobi and I started biochemistry and from first year even the directors would ask us what do you want to do when you live in when you graduate and I was almost saying ask me that again and I will shoot you because all this time we don't know what you will be you encompass and I wasn't the only one and even now as you speak I am very sure there are people in the universities who are doing courses and they have not done four years after first year what are they going to people swing so I go through that in that day I get an internship honestly it was for four months I spent my life in the lab when you do biochemistry and chemistry either you are doing selling medicine or you are working in the lab doing analysis and things like that so I mean honestly for four months three months in the lab and I can tell you that was the most boring part of my career just being there with reactions it's so routine you wake up every morning go get a sample of the water from the borehole for using the factory go to the factory get a sample of the raw material so everything is controlled of course you are not going to find issues most of the time you find everything ok so it was interesting the first one month when I was learning and it was new to me from the second time I was imagining I can't do this for the rest of my life and I mean that year so now how do you start seeing your change in your career that year now I understand you so the last month I happened to go to different sections to understand how the business runs and I was very excited with HR whatever was happening in HR and I was just there for a week so I participated in recruitment it was very exciting and then we organised a team building again it was very exciting so maybe I was only exposed to two elements of HR that I found very interesting at that particular moment so I go back to school and I'm telling everybody imagine I'm in that year and I'm very sure that I have to now look for money because my parents won't pay for me so I go through graduation I pass very well and my friends are now looking at going to the UK US to do their masters and I'm telling them imagine this is the end of me and science you know so I proceed and then I go home tell my parents I'm changing to HR it was the first time I got hearing HR and my mum was like human rights I'm like no human resources and she's like if you want anything I'm taking you to KU you go do education you teach sciences you have passed down very well you did well in high school in sciences you have done that in the university the next step go teach and I'm like mami I can't teach but I think this it might happen in future because I knew how maybe we advised you when you are joining in first year to do a different course you refused now you are coming again we are giving you advice you are refusing we cannot continue this trend luckily I had not touched my health I had saved all my health but given I had like 60,000 when I was living helped you not to hear this when I was living when I was living fourth year and that is the money that I used to pay for my high diploma my post graduate now but when I was graduating I was already in my second semester now studying the HR and I knew I was on my own on this no one was understanding this in my family I was on my own I had to now find a way of how and in that class I was the only one out everybody had a social science if you look at the advanced for human resources to be a bachelor's degree in social science or other certifications so I was the only one in that particular class who was coming from another field it was sociology education, cancelling education what they actually see some that can actually now align to people believe when you have done hard sciences you are not social you don't have good interpersonal skills no that's what I was battling with and I remember in the middle of all that I almost thought maybe I should drop and just go do CPA become an accountant they are as hard as the scientists so to some extent even at this point you are still confused even at this time I am still confused and I have not paid with my own money I have paid with my own money and that money has to reach that year without being broken but somehow because of now that feeling I had to stop now depending on my parents to get things for me I said networking I just finished school I had to start networking I was always at the we used to call a training coordinator which I could imagine is a queen maybe over dinner something in the university I was always there getting to understand getting her to know me as a person can I help with anything and their time should give me things to type their time should give me things to just help for a file it was I had to just have a contact to start getting to know people who were in this field who would know as much as I have done hard science I actually have good interpersonal skills and when I finished I dropped my CV with her and because of that also I went I bought so many books and it was not as I had it now just to understand how do I let my CV understanding how do I excel in interviews it was like it was like another job just trying to sharpen my skills in writing CVs and pursuing interviews I remember I had a very book that was called knock them dead and it was just about interviews and I would read that book I would ask people I have not even become a HR person No you are training yourself to become a HR No I am training myself how to pass how to break the wall of getting that job with a hard background like I had so luck works I didn't have a mark I finished school finished in November so stayed home in December waiting for results and the results came out in January what do I get? I called from the college we afforded your CV, you and 15 others to this particular organization you go into every friendship luckily I was the best so it paid off and I remember that night I didn't sleep because I am thinking I am competing with people who are already made for the market I am coming as a stranger in this particular field so luck enough I got the internship it was paid I was very excited I remember when I was paid my first alloy to go home and say Mami say I told you I will get a job with this so it was an internship and it was paying me for $100 that was like $48 that time it was a lot of cash running and I was over the moon so I changed that I start working and I do HR for nine years and then I pick up in and I am like imagine I am done I can't do this now what do you want to be now? I can't do this anymore you have tested the HR for nine years I do nine years I have grown from an intern to a regional HR manager in charge of Eastern Africa or in charge of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan it's an Africa and I am like imagine I am not done with HR I can't sit on this desk anymore and now I start my own thing alright now as an HR you have met Kevin Kevin has moved from this levels of life because he feels I want to be this and that now as an HR when you employ him are you employing someone who is so ambitious are you worried to have him in your farm or he is okay if he does what what is the question? he has moved levels he has been from the engineering he has moved he wanted to be the engineer now he doesn't want he has come back to be a teacher now you have met this person as all these career lines he wanted to be a BCD but now he has stopped that when you look at that particular person as an HR do you see an ambitious person or can you dismiss them when they come? I want to say that again that depends with the individuals and individuals who will be sitting in that particular HR because this is not learning school this depends with how exposed you are and how you see life and why I was giving my stories to people to know that things change every time things change every time and I was listening to his story he said he was doing computer engineering and he was training students to do this computer engineering how to repair how to do a BCD he was not doing his A game because he was not trained to pass that knowledge so he actually went to school to help him not leave the computer engineering but to help him now become a person he makes sure that the students fully understood not just the technique but the how of passing that knowledge teachers are taught how to teach adults and that's what he went for and he said he went to that after we went through the train of trainer program so what he is saying is you have to continuously improve yourself don't reach just because you have that degree or that diploma if you feel you have reached you will be faced out now he may agree from being a lecturer you will be surprised you went to train of trainers now you are doing become Zitek gave me an opportunity to expose myself to more careers they used to have career talks professor would come in and I would admire them then I said I will not leave the engineering aspect or the IT aspect but I can still go back to class and now add more knowledge so I went to University of Nairobi and took Bachelor of Commerce but still specialized in the IT aspect and now the knowledge increased so I can now even now start teaching with confidence because now I have a degree but in the process because after discovering myself I realized now and then just teaching alone I want to tell my story I want to tell people my story and I tempted to move out of Zitek and I got an opportunity to join an examination body called City and Guilds because now I have been teaching and they have been assessing my students what about now if I now try to develop the content and see if someone else teaches and assess my content so I joined City and Guilds as a business development manager and from the communication and networking engaging they also realized this guy we can still use him as a trainer so they gave me an opportunity to move to South Africa and pursue still the TOT again now at a higher level assessment college and I came back and they told me now we moving from a business development manager to a quality, excellent executive now covering 10 countries and I'll be training our trade lecturers so that they can train the syllabus and it gave me an opportunity to interact with at least over 500 colleges across 10 countries just growing and engaging people I also realized now with this degree and the TOT I still need more knowledge and network and so on I came back to University of Nairobi and I did my masters in project planning and management why now project and planning management as the head of quality I was assigned projects and I don't want someone to say we have this boss here who does not understand the content and so that's why I came back to University of Nairobi and pursued my masters in project planning and management so you see as much as I've done Diploma Computing Engineering I've done Battle of Comas then I'm doing a project I'm asking myself are they related yes they are related because the diploma helps me to deliver the technical meet then the Battle of Comas also still in line of IT I'm still training the IT aspect now remember I also have the TOT the TOT is now helping me to deliver the content now as we talk about the 21st century people talk about project you want something that you can run very fast and deliver rather than now because I'm very sure that all of us will not be working here for the next 100 years you want new challenges and that's why I moved to the project management alright now I don't know if our director I just want to say something to what he's saying and what he's saying is very k I first of all like that you're a diploma person you say from diploma but has grown to the level that you know what I mean and whatever he's saying is like he's self made he's able to say I need this to go to the next level I need this to go to the next level and that is a game changer if you want to pursue your career you have to know about just look ahead and see for me to go to the next step what do I need to do today for me to be there tomorrow very very important actually the question I wanted to ask you if he has moved all these levels and at some point he needs a job there's a there's a maize or a notion going out here why are you over qualified you know you have done this and that so we have a group of people who fear to do much for them to be dismissed because they are over qualified now what should limit me from having all those levels in life as much as I can get I think nobody should limit you but the most important thing and I like his story and I'm going to go back to his story which is and these things are lined are you just doing for the purpose of accumulating papers or are they helping you but I don't have a point of people going even for a master if you finish your peak and you have to go for a masters but you have to use your wisdom when to talk about it and when not to talk about it if I'm looking for an assistant and they have a PhD if you keep bringing that maybe his goal is to go and teach somewhere so there are times that you have to use your wisdom and know when to fish to bring out that particular masters when not to bring it because depending on what I require but please attain one time invest in yourself but be guided by the market be guided by where you want to go don't just do because people are doing MBE you rush and do a name without thinking how this helped me in whatever I want to achieve exactly actually next time we will be looking into the job market and how you make yourself available for those positions apparently we are out of time and I appreciate our director has added us two minutes on which Zisha Aisha thank you so much for coming back home this is a series that has begun today to be continuing you will learn so much from the career how to choose your career how to find yourself in the job market what you need to fight for your space even after employment and all you need will be having Jean here with us for all those series they have been my guest Mr. Kevin Canisio Osundo now that you've done Masters and I don't know PhD to get to that career and Jean he is HR manager you have your own firm and that's a good thing by the way if you hang out now you become the best you can be thank you so much for being part of us this morning have yourself a very good day I'll be seeing you again in the evening with the news until then have yourself a very good day my name is Dereva Hilawe