Everyone who has ever gone job hunting in Nigeria will tell you that it’s so terrible, that they’d have rather help Hercules with his 12 labours than do it again. It’s an incredibly shitty experience made worse by potential employers who are out to:
- Exploit wide-eyed, fresh graduates who don’t know any better.
- Take advantage of the desperation of the ones who have already been in the job market for a while (thanks to Nigeria’s unemployment levels).
Here are 4 annoying staples of job hunting in Nigeria that almost everyone will come across at some point in their career.
1) Every job opening you find asking for applicants with experience:
The question you’ll ask yourself after encountering this a couple of times is “How am I supposed to get any experience if no one will hire me?!”. Some employers will even add shit like “FRESH GRADUATE with TWO YEARS EXPERIENCE” just so their ads will show up in more places.
Those employers probably haven’t given it much thought but they’re going to hell.
2) Potential employers requesting for people with experience and then offering them peanuts:
After gathering hundreds of hopeful job applicants who’ve been gaining experience for years and putting them through Philoctetes-style tests, some potential employers (who don’t fear God) then proceed to offer the applicants who made it through salaries so small that actual peanuts would be better.
3) Unrealistic job requirements with a side of pointless ageism:
“Looking for applicants with at least 12 years of experience Masters degree. Applicants must be no older than 25.”
BITCH HOW?!
It’s hard enough getting into a university early in this country. Then if you manage to do that, ASUU’s neverending beef with the government will cause so many strikes that your four-year course could take you almost double that time to finish. So where exactly do these people expect to find a 25-year-old with 10 years experience? Also, what stops a 32-year-old from doing the same job? WHAT?!
4) Scam job interview emails:
These ones take advantage of desperate job seekers. I don’t know how they get the email addresses but they send a mass email to hundreds (maybe thousands) of people asking them to come to some shady as hell neighbourhood for a job interview. Victims of these scams have returned with different stories. Some were robbed, almost kidnapped, almost recruited into shitty marketing jobs for GNLD etc.
The key here is to not go for an interview at a place you know damn well you didn’t apply. You’re not that lucky.
Speaking of job hunting in Nigeria, the latest episode of our show, Nigerians Talk, tackles this topic. A group of Nigerian youth spoke about their job hunting experiences and they ranged from “lol” to “Jesus Christ”. Watch the video below:
Now that you’ve hopefully finished watching the video, click here to access a form you can use to give us feedback on how to make to show better.
