10
Reasoning, problem-solving
& ideation
REABETSWE MAKOFANE Reabetswe is a Senior Consultant in Strategy and Business Design at Deloitte. As a UCT alumna, she prides herself on being an evidencebased decision maker, using real data to investigate and understand the issues facing systems and organisations in order to develop entrepreneurial and innovative interventions to address them
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Congratulations on beginning your career! If you have your first job lined up, you are amongst the one third of lucky graduates from South African universities who find a job after graduating. If you are still awaiting an interview or offer, you might be feeling frustrated, anxious and lost. These feelings, and more, will come up many times throughout your career. The intention of this article is to help prepare you and hopefully help you feel empowered to tackle the job market. You may have already come across a few articles that highlight the importance of analytical capability or come across job adverts looking for “problem-solving and analytical skills”. This may have left you questioning what “problem-solving and analytical skills” look like or where to learn these skills (did they even cover these in my lectures?). This article should help you find the answers. So, what is problem-solving and analysis? Problem-solving is how we move from identifying an issue or new need in our world or work to deciding on a way to resolve the issue or serve the need. Sometimes we can do this without much thought. For example, my pot plant looks like it is dying – a simple solution: I should water it.
36 / CAREERS SERVICE GUIDE 2021
