I have had the privilege of working for a couple of organisations since leaving the university in 2007.
After graduating with confidence flowing out my ears, I was almost sure that any employer who interviewed me would be so excited to have me on board.
I was looking at that corner office and keys to the company car after a few months. What I lacked in experience I made up for in confidence, I was braced for success and ready to eat up the corporate world with a large spoon.
As the job hunt began I was awakened to the reality of the Kenyan job market. I had completed a degree in International Relations which was in theory supposed to equip me with skills to be a diplomat extraordinaire.
I had been prepared to work in either the NGO world, at an embassy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the most coveted United Nations.
I made several applications to many of these organisations but most of them came to nothing, the ones where I at least landed an interview got me to the final stage but for reasons unknown to me at the time I would be dropped for someone else.
I later came to discover that the NGO world like many other industries is rife with internal politics and surprisingly, tribalism!
At this point, I must admit I was getting desperate and my confidence was draining fast. I needed a pep talk and found one in a mentor and confidant, my big sister. She told me to just go for interviews wherever I was invited for whichever position, and that's exactly what I did.
Off I went on a journey of professional self-discovery, going from one job to another in search of a career that I would be passionate about.
You see, I had promised myself that I would never stay in a job that I didn't love, a promise I have been very hard pressed to keep.
Well, today, nearly eight years after that pep talk, I am in a profession that has utterly nothing to do with what I had studied in university. I am now a corporate trainer.
I was forced to learn everything on the job and somehow through the right guidance and leadership I have refined my professional skills and now use the experiences I have encountered in the classes I teach.
I have discovered that in school nothing prepares you for the rejection and the strife and the politics of the corporate world. No one tells you that papers will only get you so far and that the world owes you absolutely nothing for having fancy papers from a fancy private university.
I know of a man who worked diligently in a company for 30 years as a messenger with no pay rise patiently waiting for a promotion that never came up until his retirement.
They conveniently fail to tell you in school that, quite often, hard work and diligence will not always help you to rise up the corporate ladder.
The reality, sadly, is that unless you were born with a golden spoon in your mouth or you are one of those people we all love to hate for whom doors simply swing open for at their touch, we all have to pay our dues at some point in order to get our promotions or that oh so coveted raise.
In short it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and survival for the fittest is a phrase used much too lightly with regards to corporate Kenya.
Nevertheless, there is definitely still hope and as the old adage goes every dog has its day. So, whatever your disposition in the corporate world, find your passion, or as a wise man once told me not every soil is suited for every seed, find your soil, keep at it.
Don't be afraid to try new things; forget what our parents used to tell us, we weren't all meant to sit behind a desk from 8am to 5pm.
Break out of the rat race.
Anything is possible!