Use your first 5 years after school to build experience - CEO of Vodafone Ghana advises

Patricia Obo-Nai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of one of Ghana’s biggest telecommunications companies, Vodafone Ghana, has advised that the youth to focus on building experience in their field of work within their first four-five years of completing school.

In an interview with Rev. Erskine on the Y-Leaderboard Series segment of YFM’s Myd-Morning Radio Show, she observed that young men and women of today do not want to go through the stress of building their experience, however, she believes it is important that people build that experience for themselves and not be in a rush to attain managerial positions.

“If you have the opportunity to use your time of internship to build your skill, then you may be able to move faster on the career ladder because you’ve used school period to build some experience but even if you miss that opportunity, your first four-five years after school, I think is for experience building”, she said.

Mrs Obo-Nai revealed that she did not even have to apply for her first job because of her experience from her internship as well as National Service and by the time she was done with her National Service, her offer letter for her first job was already on her desk.

“We’re all in a hurry to get the leadership role. We feel we have the degree, we need to get the job first, we need to move to management level but it takes depth. You need to understand the business to get there.

If you’re 30years old, at least build 3years of experience on a role. That’s minimum. It will help you to grow and then you move on”, the CEO further advised.