By Dr Bianca van Niekerk
Namibia’s youth are often told to study hard, obtain qualifications, and search for employment. This advice still matters, but it is no longer enough.
In a difficult labour market, young people need more than certificates. They need the ability to communicate value, identify opportunities, build networks, solve problems, and present themselves professionally. In other words, they need marketing skills.
This is not to suggest that unemployment can be solved by a good profile picture or a polished social media page. Namibia’s unemployment challenge is structural and serious.
Official labour statistics reported unemployment at 36.9% in 2023, with broader unemployment substantially higher when discouraged workers are included (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2025).
This means many young people are entering a labour market that cannot absorb everyone quickly. Telling youth to “just apply” is not enough. They must also be equipped to position themselves for opportunity.
Not Just About Advertising
Marketing is often misunderstood as advertising or selling. At its core, marketing is about understanding needs, creating value, and communicating that value clearly. This makes marketing highly relevant to employability and entrepreneurship.
A graduate looking for work must understand what employers need. A hair stylist working from home must understand what customers value. A student selling lunch packs on campus must understand pricing, convenience, and repeat customers.
A young designer must know how to present a portfolio. A farmer selling fresh produce must communicate quality and reliability.
Employability research shows that graduates require more than formal qualifications. They also need career-management skills, adaptability, networks, and the ability to signal their capabilities credibly (Bridgstock, 2009; Tomlinson, 2017). From a marketing perspective, this is where personal branding becomes important.
Personal branding is not fake success, vanity or pressure to appear wealthy. It is strategic reputation management. It is the clear and consistent communication of who one is, what one can do, what one stands for, and why one can be trusted.
Research on personal branding describes it as a career-related activity linked to professional identity, visibility, and perceived employability (Gorbatov, Khapova & Lysova, 2018). In Namibia, where communities are interconnected and word-of-mouth remains powerful, reputation can open or close doors.
Practical Ways to Build Capacity
There are practical ways to build this capacity.
First, schools, universities, and training centres should teach basic marketing literacy to all students, not only business students. Every young person should understand customer needs, digital communication, pricing, service quality, ethical promotion, and professional conduct.
Young people should build simple professional portfolios. A portfolio can include a short biography, qualifications, skills, examples of work, testimonials, volunteer experience, and contact details. It does not need to be expensive. A well-organised PDF, LinkedIn profile, Instagram page, or Google Drive folder can help. For inclusivity, young people should also keep data-light and offline versions, such as a one-page profile that can be shared via WhatsApp or printed for local opportunities.
Then, social media should be used strategically. Posting randomly is not self-branding. A young professional can use digital platforms to share projects, learning experiences, community work, products, services, or achievements. The aim is not to impress strangers. The aim is to build credible visibility.
Entrepreneurship programmes should move beyond business-plan writing. Young entrepreneurs need practical marketing execution: how to identify customers, test an idea, set prices, respond to complaints, build trust, and encourage repeat purchases. A brilliant product can fail if the market does not understand it.
Mentorship must become more practical. Namibia needs professionals who are willing to review CVs, portfolios, business pages, communication habits, and interview readiness. Sometimes one honest conversation can help a young person present their value more clearly.
Finally, professional behaviour should be taught as a competitive advantage. Being reliable, punctual, responsive, respectful, and honest is not old-fashioned. It is marketable. In small markets, trust is everything.
Self-branding must never become a way of blaming young people for structural economic problems. However, it can improve agency. It can help young Namibians move from waiting to positioning, from silence to visibility, and from uncertainty to opportunity.
Namibia does not only need job seekers. It needs value creators. Marketing skills can help young people become both.
*Dr Bianca van Niekerk is an academic, researcher, and strategic academic leader with a PhD in Marketing Management and over a decade of experience spanning higher education, research, leadership, and industry engagement. She is a Senior Lecturer and Master of Marketing Programme Coordinator at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The opinions expressed in this piece are her own and not the views of her employer.
