A number of Ugandans lost trust in the recruitment process of firms with an assumption that most of them hire employees on the premise of connections," technical know who" in an organization.
Appearing on the Groove Cafe, Allan Ssempebwa the Media Relations Manager at the Uganda National Roads Authority, recalled undergoing a fair recruitment process that ushered him to a top position at the organization.
After University, Ssempebwa applied for a vacancy at the Uganda Revenue Authority. He attributes his fortune to God for having made it through the intense and highly competitive job interview.
“They wanted one Media Officer, and we were about 400 applicants. Here I was a graduate, competing for the job with several senior applicants. After some interviews, we remained 4 people and I made it to the top,” he said.
According to him, it was God’s making. “Nobody played out anything, I didn’t call anyone, so I'm here to testify that jobs are not about connections. For all the 2 and a half years I spent at URA, I saw people getting jobs on merit,” he said.
Further, he added that the Human resource teams are keen to carry out background checks to ascertain that the person is competent enough for the job.
Ssempebwa was in a discussion with Crystal Newman about his life and how he crossed from journalism to corporate communications.
Mr. Ssempebwa said the assumption that corporate communications requires little hard work is not true adding, that it requires even a lot more than journalism.
“There’s a lot of writing, fieldwork, photography, using broadcast and print channels appearing for events, and many more. It is a lot of work and if you don’t want to write, Public relations may not be for you,” he said.
Mr. Ssempebwa has spent close to 7 years serving at UNRA as a media and communications professional. He formerly worked at URA for close to 3 years.
The Groove Cafe with Crystal Newman airs every Weekday from 4-5 pm on RX Radio.
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