Amazing selling points Nigerian Job Seekers omit on their CVs (I)

As the premium consultancy arm of Jarushub continues to grow in popularity, I find myself spending the bulk of my weekend reviewing clients’ CVs and cover letters. When working on a CV, I always have cause to call the owner to drill more information to give flesh to otherwise dry CVs. To my amazement, many people miss out very critical information that have the potential to boost their chance in job selection process. I will be sharing them from time to time so others can learn from them. I am sharing three in this first part.

1, Awards: Yes, we know that in Nigeria, awards are one naira for two. Any fool can buy one. But whether the one you bought or the one you genuinely won, award is a big booster to your CV. If you don’t have any award, there is no harm, but if you have any, even if it is winning best student as a local champion in your village primary school, please include on your CV.

I was reviewing a CV yesterday and I noticed from the CV that this lady must be brilliant: sound second class upper in Geology from a good school, grammatical error-free CV (unfortunately, only 1 out of every 5 CVs I look at are basic error-free – a sad indicator of the English language proficiency of our graduates) and other pointers to her brilliance. I picked up my phone and called her to eke out more juicy things about her that I can use to garnish her CV.  Alas! I got to know she won award as best MBA (Marketing) student in her class, in Unilag for that matter. How can she leave out such booster on her CV before? I included it in the revamped CV.

Awards may not be able to upstage other critical information like class of degree, age (if entry level in an age-specifying recruitment), course of study, and experience (in experienced hire), but it could be a tie-breaker when there are many other applicants that qualify on the basic selection criteria. For entry level and first five years experience, every relevant award should be put on CV, but as you gain more experience, you can begin to sift the irrelevant ones.

For example, I used to have on my entry level CV many years ago that I was the 3^rd best student in my primary school and 2^nd best student in my secondary school, but I have taken those out of my CV today when I have more weighty awards like Best ICAN candidate in Nigeria at the Foundation stage in 2007.  I still have at least 5 awards and prizes on my CV till today. In fact, I suspect that the reason I got my first permanent job as an accountant in an oil and gas company when I had not qualified as an accountant then (I studied economics in the university and had only passed stage 1 in 5-stage ICAN when I got an accounting job) was because I won award in that first stage, which was screaming on my CV.

2, Nationality: When you are in Rome, behave like a Roman. We may not be able to wish away this fact in recruitment process in Nigeria, where sentiments still play out. It is to take advantage of this psyche that I put state of origin on CVs of clients I review. Although state of origin should ordinarily not mean anything except where the recruiter expressly asks for it, putting it there voluntarily, where not specified, I don’t think you will lose anything, except if expressly said in the advert that you should not put it. You never can tell if the HR manager is from your village and that, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whom you are speaking with, may be a tie-breaker.

Related to this is nationality. I was asking for the state of origin of the owner of a CV I was reviewing this morning when he told me he had dual nationality: Nigerian and British. Well, I think that’s a plus. If it was some inconsequential country, I would not have put the other nationality there for him, but because it is Britain, we all know many Nigerians – some recruiters, interviewers inclusive – fall for anything oyinbo. I am taking advantage of that for him. I included it in his revamped CV. He would have missed out such.

3, Leadership activities: Another question I ask clients when reviewing CVs for them, if missing on their raw CV, is, what leadership activities they held in the past. This was missing in the CV of many clients I worked on. Again, this may not be as important as grade in school, age, experience, or even awards, but truth is, some hirers look at it. A top CEO in my network, who runs the Nigerian business of a multinational management consulting firm, consistently says that one important thing he looks for in CVs is the candidate’s past with respect to extra curricular and leadership activities. Was he just someone that did no more than moving from class to hostel during his years in school, even if he had a First Class?

Leadership activities like Secretary of one body, President of one association, etc, tells this. He says this is so because such people that led teams in the past have persuasive skills. They have been able to influence their peers to make them their leader. Such people will be good for the workplace. I also remember my interview with the Deputy CEO of one top bank in 2006 when I just finished university. He looked through my CV and saw the academic laurels and all that, then asked me, “from your CV, it doesn’t appear you engaged in social and extra-curricular activities in the university”. I quickly defended myself by pointing to where I was the President of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), OAU chapter, on the CV before him. This is another point that was recurringly missing in most of the CVs I have worked on, and surprised to learn from phone discussion that the owners actually had.

I will be sharing more in subsequent parts of this series.

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