Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance Ken Thompson has descended heavily on graduates who assume they will get employed by businesses based on their certificates and qualifications saying if that is the only reason people get employed then monkeys can be trained to do accounting.
He made these assertions when he spoke at this year’s Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ (ACCA) 2017 students summit and job fair under the theme “ACCA Qualification – The future” on July 14, 2017, at the Accra International Conference Centre.
According to him, he doesn’t care about the certificates and qualification attained in school but rather concerned about the person who is a critical thinker and a problem solver who can manage and control situations in a job environment.
Furthermore, he said what irritates him most is the fact that they come out saying they have MBAs or had a first-class and then start demanding for huge sums of money as their pay or money for other allowances.
“You need somebody to manage and control your environment but here is the deal, you can train a monkey to do accounts. If it is accounts, you can train a monkey and now I’ve got to the point where I'm asking myself maybe I need MBAs. These guys who qualify they come out, they think they are God’s gift to mankind. I don’t care about them. The figures don’t mean anything to me, does it align with my strategy, does it speak to me, is the person who is bringing those figures telling me that Mr. Thompson, we are spending 2 cedis more than we should on fuel, that crane shaft, your engine there’s a problem got to deal with it”.
“And that’s the challenge we have, problem-solving skills. A monkey can do accounts so don’t come and tell me you are qualified so I should pay you xyz and they come with big demands. I want a car, I want a housing allowance, give me a telephone; I don’t care” Ken Thompson said.
Normally unemployed graduates in the country complain about not getting jobs because employers demand experience before they get hired which they sometimes wonder where to get it from if they don’t get employed by anyone.
But the CEO of Dalex Finance has debunked the allegations made by them saying experience employers demand isn’t about someone who has worked in the formal sector but rather a person who can think, reads a lot and is knowledgeable.
“Being qualified is neither here nor there, what I’m looking out for is someone who can think and has experience and experience isn’t someone who has worked in the formal environment. It’s someone who reads, that’s where knowledge is. You can have as many theses as you want; you could have won first-class, I don’t care.
