What should you do after graduation?
This is a sensitive topic because I think most of us get it badly wrong, and the cost of getting it wrong is years.
Here is the belief most Kenyan graduates carry. You finish your degree, you prepare your papers, and you start looking for a job. That is the entire plan.
There was a time that worked. Companies were waiting for graduates and they wanted to hire. That is not the situation today, and the chance of it going the way you were told is low.
So most of us graduate with no sense of where to start, what to do, or what comes next.
I graduated on 25 April 2019 with a degree in purchasing and supplies management. My plan was to get a job in government. And I will be honest about something uncomfortable. Part of the appeal was that I thought if I was a little bit corrupt, I would make a lot of money. That is a mantra that gets sold to young people in this country, and it is a lie.
Nothing went the way I planned, and I am glad it did not.
Here is what I would tell any graduate now.
Watch the full video
Part 1: Fix the mindset first
1. This is not the beginning of tarmacking
The moment people graduate, they assume they are now entering the tarmacking phase. Walking around, dropping CVs, waiting.
Who decided that is mandatory?
That mindset alone sends people down a rabbit hole of applying and not getting, applying and not getting, for years, while telling themselves this is the normal process.
It is not normal. It is just common, and those are different things.
Get out of the idea that a period of unemployment is a rite of passage you have to serve. It is not a queue. Nobody is checking how long you have waited.
2. Forget about connections
Very few family members will actually give you a job.
You hear people talk about connections constantly, as though everybody else has an uncle somewhere. The reality is that most of those connections are not the decision makers. They can pass your CV along and that is roughly where their power ends.
I am not saying it never works. Sometimes it does. But if your plan depends on it, you have no plan.
My advice is simple. Be the kind of person who attracts the opportunity, rather than somebody who depends on a connection to hand it to you. One of those you control. The other you do not.
Part 2: Learn skills that solve problems
3. Institutional education has ended. Real education starts now.
What you had for the last 4 years was institutional education. A lecturer, a syllabus, units, a programme to follow. Somebody told you what to learn and when the exam was.
That is over.
Past graduation, the real world starts teaching you, and it is not a favourable teacher. It does not care about your grades and it does not give you a syllabus.
The first lesson it teaches is this one.
4. Money is a product of value
You do something. You offer a service or a product. You solve a problem for somebody. They pay you.
That is the entire mechanism and everything else is decoration.
So whether you are about to graduate or you graduated 3 years ago, the question is not what job you want. The question is what problem you can solve, and specifically what problem a business owner will pay to have solved.
The skills worth learning today are the ones that answer that. Social media management. Digital marketing. Web design. Graphic design. Video editing. Data analysis. Learning to work properly with AI tools.
Take videography and video editing as an example. You learn to shoot and cut video. A shop owner in Eldoret, Nakuru, Mombasa or Nairobi needs that, because people are scrolling and watching content all day and that is where their customers now are. If you can produce and publish that content for them, they will pay you.
That is the whole test. Somebody has a problem, you can solve it, they pay. Learn skills that pass that test.
5. Start with Canva and CapCut
Before you talk about learning advanced digital skills, start with the basics, because most graduates have theoretical knowledge and almost no practical ability.
Learn Canva. You can make posters for your church, flyers for a business, simple graphics that people genuinely need. Your digital literacy journey starts with tools like this, not with anything complicated.
Then learn CapCut. It is a simple video editor and it is what most people in this market actually use. Video is becoming the standard format for everything, so if you move into social media management or digital marketing later, that skill carries directly across.
Two tools. Both free to start. Both immediately sellable.
6. Learn to use AI tools properly
Most people think using AI means opening ChatGPT or Claude and asking it about their relationship problems.
I call that a nonsensical use of a serious tool. There is enormous power in these things and almost nobody is using them for anything that produces money.
Use them for real work. Build content calendars. Write social media posts. Draft proposals. Build websites with tools like Claude and Lovable. Analyse information you would otherwise spend a day on.
AI is becoming a standard, not a novelty. Knowing that ChatGPT exists is not a skill. Being the person who can use it to build something for somebody else is.
7. Get your basic computer and digital literacy right
This is the unglamorous one and it matters more than people expect.
Learn Google Workspace properly. Docs, Sheets, Drive, Keep. Learn to type a document, format it, and prepare a proper proposal.
Learn the productivity tools people actually use at work. Notion. ClickUp. Trello. Metricool for scheduling social media across platforms.
And learn the small things. If somebody asks you to send photos from your graduation, most people will try to send 40 images over WhatsApp. Put them in a Drive folder and share one link. That is a 10 second skill that signals competence.
People get jobs, sit down at a computer, and cannot use it. Do not be that person.
Part 3: Getting paid
8. Do not wait to feel ready
Most people decide they will start looking for clients once they are 100 percent good.
You can sell your services at 30 percent.
You do not need to be the best web designer in Kenya for somebody to pay you to build them a site. Somebody out there has a problem that your current, basic, imperfect skill level can solve, and that is exactly who you serve first.
You do not have to be the best. You have to be good. And you get better by doing the work, not by preparing to do the work.
Every month you wait to feel ready is a month somebody less skilled than you is getting paid and getting better.
9. Build a portfolio, not a stack of certificates
Nobody hires you because of certificates.
You have KCPE, KCSE, a degree, maybe CPA, maybe other accreditations. You have been taught your whole life that the paper is what gets you paid.
It is not. Your ability is what gets you paid, and a portfolio is how you prove ability.
If somebody asks whether I can build a platform where they list courses, I send them Click2Skill. If they want a learning management system, I show them ones I have built for clients. That is my portfolio, and it answers the question far better than any certificate could.
If you have no clients yet, build the work anyway. Create a website for your church. Build a dummy site for a business you invented. Edit a video nobody asked for. It counts, because what the client is looking at is whether you can do the thing, not who paid you to do it.
10. Learn how to sell
This is the biggest gap I see, and I see it every day in my messages.
Graduates come out knowing how to build and with no idea how to sell. You can do a dozen things and you cannot convince one person to pay you for any of them.
That is why you find people with genuinely good products and startups going nowhere. The thing works. Nobody knows about it and nobody has been asked to buy it.
I will say something about myself here. I could be an average video editor, an average graphic designer, an average social media manager. The reason it works is that I can sell. I can approach somebody, explain why they might want social media management, hold their interest and close it.
Most of us are comfortable with papers. We think if we just push enough CVs at people, doors open. They do not.
Learn the art of sales. There is good free material on it, and Alex Hormozi is worth your time on the subject.
11. Learn to speak and write well
We take units on communication skills and critical thinking, and then graduate unable to articulate an idea in writing or out loud.
I get messages that say nothing but “hi.” Or “Elvis, looking for a job, do you have any opportunity.”
People judge you by how you write, and that judgement happens before anybody assesses your ability. If a person cannot understand what you want from your first message, there is no second message.
Compare it to this. “Hi, my name is James. I saw your post about the opportunity and I am interested. I have been doing video editing for 8 months and here is some of my work.”
Same person, completely different outcome.
The same applies to email, which graduates struggle with badly. Where the subject line goes. What belongs in the body. When to copy somebody in. These are small mechanical skills and almost nobody teaches them.
And learn to hold a conversation. Not the hollow version where the whole exchange is “how are you, I am fine, just checking on you, thanks.” Learn to say something. Learn to keep a conversation moving.
Universities do not have the time or the resources to teach you this. You can graduate with first class honours and still not be able to write a clear email, and that gap will cost you opportunities you never even learn about.
12. Post about what you do online
Graduates are strangely afraid of being visible.
What exactly are you afraid of?
Opportunity goes to visible people. If you never tell anybody what you do, how is the opportunity supposed to find you?
Post what you know how to do. Whatever it is. If you sell clothes, post that. If you edited a video, show it. This is a website I built. This is an account I manage. This is a content calendar I made for a client.
I started posting on TikTok in May 2022. I never imagined it would reach where it has. And because of that visibility, opportunities come to me rather than me chasing them.
Here is a concrete example of what visibility is worth. If I announce a class on virtual assistance for a given month, and the target is 100 people at 1,000 shillings each, that is 100,000 shillings. But none of it happens if nobody knows the class exists.
And understand how hiring works now. When somebody needs a video editor, they do not post a vacancy. They open TikTok. They ask in a Facebook group. They look at who is visible.
Be in people’s faces.
Part 4: Choose your environment
13. Take a job that teaches you something
You do not have to volunteer for 3 years. Somewhere along the line we decided that was the route, and it is not.
If you are in a company volunteering and learning nothing, leave. If you have a job paying 40,000 and you are learning nothing, that job is more expensive than it looks.
Take the job that pays less and teaches more, especially early.
My first real job was at a cyber cafe earning 8,000 shillings a month. The owner was called Miss Rachel, and she trained me on things I still use.
This is how you print with an Epson printer. This is how you photocopy properly. This is how you register a business. This is how you make business cards. This is how you handle a client when they are unhappy.
I learned Adobe Photoshop there because I was dealing with client work every day. I learned to use the eCitizen portal to register businesses, which then became a service I could offer on my own.
Eight thousand shillings a month. And eventually it let me open my own cyber cafe, which is where everything else came from.
The salary was the smallest part of what that job paid me.
14. Learn from people you admire
Find somebody doing what you want to do, and learn from them.
When I started on TikTok in 2022, I found creators whose work I admired and I paid attention. If they held a webinar, I joined. If they went live, I watched. I took whatever I could from it.
Here is the mistake people make after graduation. They think they have stopped being a student. You have not. I still put myself in the position of a learner, and I still go looking for people who are ahead of me.
And I have to name the thing that stops most people doing this, because it is common here. Jealousy.
Somebody is doing well and the instinct is resentment rather than curiosity. The useful question is the opposite one. What did they do that I could also do? What is the one thing they do differently?
Not copy everything. Learn something.
There was a time I ran a 5am challenge, and another creator later ran his own. Should I go and fight him about it? No. That is how ideas move.
One more thing on this. If you want to learn from somebody, bring something. I provided free services to people in exchange for being taught. I will build you a website, you teach me video editing. That is a trade, and people say yes to trades far more often than they say yes to “be my mentor.”
15. Move locations and explore
Do not stay in the same place for 20 years and expect to think differently.
You do not need 200,000 shillings a month to do this. Move from Nyeri to Thika. Spend 2 years there and prepare to move to Nairobi. Get to know Nairobi properly. Later, if the work allows it, go further.
I moved my work to Westlands. Not to live there, and somebody genuinely misunderstood me on this once. Westlands is expensive for residential living. But as a place to learn how business is done, it is very good.
Upper Hill. Kileleshwa. Kilimani. Mombasa. Eldoret. Nakuru. Go and see what exists.
Your sense of what is possible is set by what you have seen. If you have seen very little, your ceiling is low for no good reason.
Part 5: Put your life in order
16. Sort your papers
The world does not run on your papers the way you were told. But there will be a moment when they matter, and you do not want to be searching then.
Most graduates cannot tell you where their KCPE certificate is. Or their KCSE. Or their transcripts.
Organise all of it properly, digitally and physically. Certificates, transcripts, driving licence. If you might study or work abroad, this matters more.
This is also a good time to apply for a passport if you do not have one.
Keep a CV template you can edit rather than rebuilding it in a panic every time. Same with a cover letter.
And if you register a business, keep the registration documents somewhere you can produce them in 30 seconds, because you will be asked.
17. Know your money
What are your actual expenses?
Rent. Internet. Water. Electricity tokens. Shopping. Transport. If somebody helps with the house, what you pay them.
Add it up honestly.
Here is why it matters. Your monthly expenses are 25,000 and you accept a job paying 20,000. Is that going to work? You already know it will not, but people take those jobs because they never did the arithmetic.
Once you know your number, everything gets easier. Somebody asks what salary you want, and you are not guessing. Your costs are 25,000, so you know what figure actually covers you with room to live.
If you are running a business, the same number becomes your monthly target. I need 25,000 to stand still, so what do I need to do this month to clear that and make a profit on top?
You can use an AI tool for this. Put in your real figures and have it work through what you need to earn, what you could save, and what the gaps are.
On investments, I will say one thing. Question the standard advice before you follow it. Do the arithmetic yourself, compare what you are actually being offered against the alternatives, and understand what you are paying in fees. Your money is your responsibility, and that responsibility does not transfer to whoever gave you the advice.
18. Start paying off your debts
This one I have to be honest about, because I am not writing it from a clean position.
There is a debt most Kenyan graduates ignore completely, and that is HELB. I received around 140,000 shillings. Like a lot of people, I left it alone for years after graduating, and I am now working through clearing it, with a plan to have it handled by 2027.
I am telling you this because I would rather be honest than lecture you from a position I have not earned.
Here is what I have learned. Ignoring it does not make it go away, it makes it bigger and it quietly closes doors. When you do not pay, you get listed on the credit reference bureau. Then one day you walk into a bank, the app tells you your loan limit is 200,000, and the moment you apply it tells you there is an outstanding debt and you are blacklisted.
That is a future problem you are creating for yourself today, and future you will not thank you.
So structure it. Even 5,000 a month against a clear plan is a completely different position from nothing. Same with loan apps and microfinance debt. Get them on a schedule and start.
The peace of mind alone is worth it.
19. Do not bet or gamble
A lot of graduates end up here, because the money is not coming and betting looks like a shortcut.
Why would you take 1,000 shillings, put it on a jackpot, and expect a million? That is not a plan, and it is not a livelihood. The house always wins. That is the entire business model and it is not hidden from you.
Avoid the schemes that are gambling with better marketing. Somebody tells you to put in 10,000 and you will have 4 times that in 7 days. You are a graduate. Some of you did economics and statistics. Do the arithmetic on that promise and ask yourself where the money would actually come from.
On forex, I want to be precise. I am not against forex trading. What I am against is people putting 50,000 shillings into an account having spent no time learning what they are doing, and then blowing it in 2 weeks.
Put your money where you have information. Your resources are finite and there are not many of them.
20. Read books
Graduation is not the end of education.
Go to a proper bookshop and buy physical books. Much of what I know came from books rather than from a classroom.
The one I would start with is Atomic Habits by James Clear, because it is about the machinery of doing things consistently, which is what most people are actually missing.
There are also good Kenyan authors worth reading. Joan Thatiah writes about relationships and Nairobi life in a way that will surprise you.
Read widely. It improves how you write, and how you write is how people judge you.
21. Take care of your body
In primary school we had PE. Somewhere after that, movement just disappeared from most people’s lives.
Let me tell you what happened to me, because it is a useful warning.
When I graduated and started making money, I was earning 20,000 to 30,000 shillings a week. In Nyeri there was Kenchic, which was our version of KFC, and I was eating 2 or 3 chickens a week because I could finally afford to.
I went from 58 kilos to around 76 kilos in a short period.
Then the problems started. Acid reflux. Pimples on my face. Issues with my hair. I felt like I was ageing quickly and I could not work out why.
Eventually I realised it was entirely food and lack of movement. I started exercising and eating differently, and it has now been over 4 years of going to the gym consistently. At this point it is a lifestyle, and when I miss it something feels wrong.
I also practise intermittent fasting. I usually do a 16 hour fast a few days a week. The longest I have gone is 32 hours. I find my head is clearer and I work better. If you have any health condition or take medication, talk to a doctor before changing how you eat, because this is what works for me rather than a prescription for everybody.
The practical point is this. I cannot be productive when my body is not working well. People blame genetics for how they feel when the honest answer is usually what they are eating and how little they move.
Protect your next 5 years
I want to end with the most important thing in this article.
The 4 or 5 years after graduation will largely determine how the rest of your life goes.
Not because anything is fixed at 25, but because the decisions you make in that window compound. You will make choices in that period whose consequences follow you for a decade.
A pregnancy you did not plan, with somebody you were never going to build a life with, and now the business you wanted to start is gone because you are raising a child. That is not a moral lecture. That is a redirected decade.
Somebody decides the fast route is something illegal, gets caught, and comes out of it years later with their twenties gone and a record attached to their name.
Or the quieter version, which is more common than any of the dramatic ones. You go back to the village, life is comfortable, nothing is urgent, and you stagnate for 5 years without ever making a single visible mistake.
Choices have consequences. That is the thing my parents raised me on and it is the only thing I am really certain about.
So guard that window. Learn the skills. Use YouTube, it is a free university. Buy courses where it makes sense.
And understand what this article is and is not. I am not giving you a manual for life, because there is no such thing and people who claim to sell one are selling something else.
You have your own life. You make your own decisions. You are an adult, and whatever you decide, you own the outcome.
Start your digital skills journey on Click2Skill
— Elvis W.
