Challenges Confronting Job Seekers In Nigeria
You will not help but laugh at the treatment usually given to job seekers in the country, there are two types of job seekers in the country, those that already have jobs waiting for them courtesy of "connections" and applicants who have to live on information to pursue search employments processes, I call this group, the true job seekers. This article will especially lay emphasis on these group true job seekers, and how they do their things to gain employments.
A typical job seeker in the Nigeria today must remain awake to information that may lead to his securing one, he does this by buying the Guardian newspapers of Tuesdays and Thursdays edition, and sometimes Punch newspaper as well if he posses qualifications above secondary school level. For persons who are not graduates, he must wake up very early the morning searching for sign-boards that must display "Sales-Girl Wanted: Apply in person" or "Are you beautiful, bold and fluent in English, then your services are needed as a Marketing Executive" Different boards may read different high sounding but usually funny sentences proclaiming demand for workers.
It is therefore not surprising that applicants once describes as Marketing Executives find their way standing all through the day mainly between 7.00am and 6.00pm on the busy roads of the country pursuing and trying to win passers-by to purchase their products. The annoying thing about this employment is that these Marketing Executives who are often given targets, with mandates to sell to passers-by whose minds were not prepared before leaving their homes unimaginable number of these products. Our Marketing Executives are often required to sell within a week the number of products that the entire firm has not sold in 4 years and they must achieve this before they will be paid their paltry salaries which is also ridiculous.
You will be appalled to discover that in the end Marketing Executives are never paid their salaries by unsuspecting employers instead, some of our Marketing Executives accept their fate as dictated by their employers, yes it happens in Nigeria and we experience it everyday, it happens because there are no jobs available and our ladies who hate to prostitute must work to earn monies.
For the graduates from our so-called prestigious universities with high sounding degrees, they solely depend on newspaper advertorials for vacancies, if you are good at studying newspapers, you may secure one soon. It is now common to see youths surrounding vendor stands with papers and biros writing out vacancies they have "hired" from newspaper vendors. Describing what patterns vacancies take in Nigerian newspapers are very vital to enable you understand the difficulty in securing even the worst forms of job positions in many firms in the country. Every job vacancy in Nigeria comes with conditions, which you may never fulfill in your entire life time, thus these conditions makes it possible for those already working to switch over to newer establishments, while fresh job seekers keep seeking and counting on God for miracles to take place.
Certain of these conditions may require you to be between the age of 19 and 24, and I ask you how often do we see children who graduate from Nigerian Universities within this age, when it is glaring that economic situations of the country is biting your family so hard? Another condition may demand "not less than 5 years experience in a similar position" Where do you get this experience, as a boy of 24 in Nigeria? Who will have given you a first time employment at the age of 22 when you just haven't got this experience in the first place? Job seekers' experience in their search for a job makes utter rubbish of securing one in the country.
Securing a job in the Banking firm in this country can be deemed juicy but working in this sector may mean hell for you. Bankers in the country might be considered the busiest set of workers in the country given that they resume 8 00am and call it a day 5.00pm, the usual busy roads of Lagos dictates that they rouse from sleep as early as 5.00am because they have to beat heavy traffics in the state. Bankers work from Mondays to Saturdays, and are never opportune to see daylights outside their offices. Individuals are fast denouncing the positions of "Marketing Executives" in our banking industry; imagine when as a Marketer, you are given unattainable target to fetch millions of naira for the firm, achieving this becomes something else.
Sometimes too, we graduate from the Nigerian Universities to discover that the courses have read are as good as unnecessary in the Nigerian job seekers world, and you entirely regret it when you discover it. It is for this reason that the Banking industry is the last hope for the Nigerian job seekers, graduates of Arabic, English Language, Political Science, Library Studies, Yoruba etc all end up in the Banks. It is also interesting that as a graduate of Science inclined discipline from our University, our society offers you no job placement. Only limited opportunities exist for instance for graduates of Physics-electronic who usually are graduated without practical knowledge.
If you are a job seeker in Nigeria, you need nothing but pray hard, for only good luck will guide you through.
Emeka Esogbue is a NIgerian from Ibusa, Delta State
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Tags: News, Newspaper, Newspapers, Nigeria, nigerian, Nigerian Newspapers, Nigerian Newspapers
