For young professionals and job seekers: Are you fit for purpose? Would you hire you?

I’ve been reflecting over my recent experiences while interacting with fresh graduates and how inadequately prepared they are for the corporate world. There’s crisis brewing as we unleash more into the labour market without the needed capacity and mentality. We seems to talk quite often about unemployment issues in the country, but the challenge of “unemployability” is far bigger. Many job seekers approach interviews for which they are blatantly incompetent with entitlement mentality. 

The words of Dr Salami at the recent Deloitte in Dialogue on Nigeria Economic Outlook 2018 (#DeloitteNEO18) on our labour force’s “fitness for purpose” brought back the memory few days back. We claimed to have large and cheap labour force but we do not fully appreciate the competence gap. We could blame it on the education policy and/or the school system but I’ll rather the school of thought that preaches personal responsibility. I agree that there’s a lot the system could do, but there’s nothing like personal commitment to self-development. 

In this age when information is readily available at the speed of light, little advantage is taken of the amount of resources that are available online. There’s just so much that’s available online but that won’t interest many of them. Loads of free books and learning resources are available 24/7 but many in need of such knowledge will rather download music files, visit junk sites, follow gossips discussion and basically waste away their time. 

Recently, I interviewed some economics students with first class and second class upper grades from top Nigeria universities and they all know so much about Nigeria’s entertainment industry and next to nothing about Nigeria economy. They seems not to have heard anything about recession and inflation, not even an elementary appreciation of the subject. They don’t know the Finance Minister’s name nor the minister in charge of Budget and National Planning. But they are quick to mention the latest music “single” of artist that I haven’t even heard their names before! They didn’t know that the President presented a budget to the National Assembly but they are familiar with all episodes of some soaps and the latest movie in the box office. They know all football clubs and their top scorers. I’m talking of economics and finance students looking to start of their career in professional service! 

I asked some of them what they know about the organization they’ve come to interview with and their answer nearly brought tears to my eyes. I asked them what they have done to improve themselves since they left school and have been waiting and praying to be employed. Their responses made me sad for days. I just couldn’t imagine that people will be that unkind to their destiny! And here they sat brandishing the latest version of smartphones with gigabytes of data waiting for the next live streaming of entertainment. 

Just like the debate about how gainful the discovery of oil is to Nigeria, you’ll be tempted to ask if social media is a blessing or a curse when you imagine its application by our young folks. Those in search of employment won’t follow recruitment agencies or organisations where they seek to get employed. They won’t read materials relevant to their field or discipline. They won’t do any research about companies they seek to work with. It’s entertainment, gossips and junks! 

Here’s some piece of advice for young professionals and those aspiring to start their career. Social media is good, but be sure to make a good use of it. Build a professional resume on LinkedIn and spend time to get a proper CV. Go online and check free sample templates of resume and build yourself one, properly spelt-checked. Google is your friend, use it for your learnings. Get online materials and get yourself equipped. There are many free online courses, books and journals. Several free online certifications courses, free tuition apps and more. 

If you’re on twitter, connect with mentors, role models and established professionals who share news, information, ideas, resources and advice that will be beneficial to your career aspiration. Participate in Twitter “chats” (Tweetchats) on topics and subject area that are of interest to your career and calling. Follow individuals and organisations that will add value to you. If on Facebook, join groups and “like” pages that will help you grow professionally. Get connected with experts from whom you could ask questions and get new ideas. 

YouTube is not just for music videos and comics. It’s a great way to learn just about anything. There are countless videos of educational materials. Just about any topic of interest. It’s like a university of its own with varieties of instructional videos. 

With what I’ve seen and heard from many large corporates, it will be wrong to conclude that the unemployment market is filled with those who couldn’t get a place to work, there are many who haven’t done enough to qualify themselves for employment. 

There’s a recent story of an organization that tested about 1,000 candidates and could only get 20 that qualify for employment. That’s 98% of those seeking employment failing basis recruitment test. You could argue about the relevance of the test, but I bet you similar stories abound. 

Many organisations are looking for the right candidate and always falling short of the number required. For as many as would focus on self-development and demonstrate competence and capacity, there’s space to be filled. 

Before you blame it on your background, ethnicity, nepotism or the system, ask yourself if you’re fit for purpose. If you are an employer, would you hire you?

Footnote:

This article was posted in verses via my Twitter handle, @YomiOlugbenro, on Thursday, 1 February 2017 during my weekly TweetChat Session with hashtag #Fit4Purpose. The tweets are subsequently posted as article on my blog www.yomiolugbenro.com and my social media accounts – facebook.com/YomiOlugbenro and LinkedIn.com/YomiOlugbenro.