XFIRE’S DIARY: JOB HUNTING DURING MY NYSC DAYS AND LESSONS LEARNT

MY CAREER DIARY

with

XFIRE

I am a graduate of one of the public universities in Nigeria, and I currently work in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. I am sharing my experience under the pen name XFIRE.

Like I earlier wrote, I started submitting job applications towards the end of my service year. An well-known international oil company that usually conducts recruitment days was the first coy that called me for a test. I went through their recruitment process but was not successful in the end. I received a regret mail. I also applied for PTDF overseas scholarship scheme during my NYSC, prepared so hard for it but was never shortlisted. Those were the 2 ‘baptisms of fire’ I received in the labour market. I will share lessons I learnt from the two rejections soon. But lemme talk about job hunting before doing so.

JOB HUNTING DURING NYSC AND NYSC DAYS
Most of the jobs I applied for were via online applications. Though, they were times I tried networking by distributing my CV’s to people that I thought could help, especially senior civil servants. There are other means of job-hunting, and I will briefly discuss all the ways of job-hunting I know:

1. Online advertisement /applications / job forums
This is the most common way of sourcing for jobs. There are various job sites which you can freely subscribe to, and you will be getting daily job alerts on email. I subscribed to many. One still sends me alerts till date because I have unsubscribed to all except one. Some job websites (though I never used them), like offer special paid services for CV review, cover letter writing and job SMS alert. A friend of a friend, who had a 2.2 got his job via SMS alert. Also visit various career /job forums, like the one in Nairaland. You will get lots of updates and information from informants in those forums. You will also get test and interview tips from fellow job seekers in such forum.

I must confess one of those forums (NaijaHotJobs) helped me a lot. As a job seeker, the internet has to be your constant partner. Many will insist that almost all online applications are not based on merit, and that you need to know someone to help ‘push the button’. While some may not be entirely merit-driven, my experience and observation has shown that many are real, and are actually merit-driven. I know countless number of job seekers that got their job via this method. As a matter of fact, more than 60% of the people I know got their jobs through online applications. For a job seeker who doesn’t have ‘connections’, I believe (s)he should focus more on improving his competency, rather than whining about how ‘unconnected’ s(he) is. This leads to lesson #6

LESSON 6: Always stay positive and self-motivated. Negativity kills mental drive. Positivity keeps you going in tough times. When you are positive, you can be focused. You can think of solutions. You can be creative. You can develop yourself. By the time I was through with service, I was jobless. For the first one and half month, no job tests/interviews seem to be coming my way. None of my older siblings had a job at that time. The situation at home was tough financially. My parents were always complaining about the harsh economic reality of Nigeria, which is quite true.

Same with some of my siblings and relatives. During that period, I saw many childhood friends and church members who had been jobless for months, and in some cases, years. That’s quite common in the North where I grew up. But despite my fears, I was positive. I convinced my parents to get me another laptop, because the one I had got damaged. With that laptop, I read a lot of e-materials on CV, cover letter writing, interview formats (tray exercises, case studies, group/team discussion, presentation, behavourial interviews, group interviews, technical interviews, etc), foreign scholarship opportunities, business models, corporate culture, etc. All the information later helped me in my first break from the labour market.

I can also remember that I almost got sacked in my first job due to a careless oversight, a grave mistake that cost the company millions of Naira. That is probably the lowest point in my career. The only consideration that saved me was that I was less than a year in the job. The story went round the whole organization, and I felt thoroughly embarrassed and depressed. But I got over it and decided to make a mark for myself in the job. By the time I wanted to resign almost 2 years after, they were pleading with me not to leave.

Yes, I know the employment situation is precarious, or that your new business failed, or that you had a 2.2, third class or even lower credit (HND), or that you read a ‘non-marketable’ course, or that you have been at home for more than a year, or that you are growing older. Stay positive. You have absolutely nothing to gain being negative.