I have never been this anxious to follow any thread except this. This is really inspiring and I can't tell the extent to which your success story has lifted my spirit. Within this short time, this thread has exposed me to a whole lots and gradually I'm beginning to realize that there are lots of information that I don't have access to, of which this one is not an exception. Thanks bro.

Mcslize: Wow nice thread, I luv it. Nothing more interesting than pursuing ur dreams but should age limit one frm pursuing one's dream? Now and then u wil hear people reminding u of ur age making discouragement to creep in and giiving up on ur dream. What can be done about that?

Well...maybe if you go a bit more specific, I will be able to give a more specific opinion.
The age barrier has always been a challenge in the Nigerian labour market. I faced it too. This is because there is no existing regulation in Nigeria concerning job/recruitment policy. Like I said, I wasn't able to apply for any banking job (though I never wanted to work in the bank anyway) because of my age. But lucky enough, there are still many jobs that have lenient age requirements. I know many graduates that started lecturing job at over 30 years. Same goes for government jobs. Most building/construction jobs have no age barrier. This also applies for medical jobs.
In addition, some MNC's do not have age barriers because of the recruitment policy of their source country. Luckily, this is most applicable in oil and gas companies. They do not have age barriers because recruitment policy in US, Netherlands, etc specify that recruitment is regardless of age, sex, religion, race, etc. An engineer friend of mine, who worked as an operations staff in banking industry for a few years, left the bank for a graduate engineering position at one of the IOC's at the age of 33 years. As a matter, he got an elevated pay, not as a result of any engineering experience but as a result of his older age!

@All, I'm still out of town. I should be back this week. I will continue my story then.

OP thanks alot

Following Bumper2Bumper, Ride on Op, Xo inspirating

Wow. This is really motivating....keep it up @op. By the way what engineering discipline did u study?

Rhema14: Wow. This is really motivating....keep it up @op. By the way what engineering discipline did u study?

Hmm, I might just reveal that in the course of this thread.
But it will surprise you to know that I interface with a lot of other disciplines even outside engineering in my current job function.

@Op, nice work. Of the many graduates I have seen many find difficult to express themselves not to talk of putting their thougts in writing. How are u able to develop these fascinating writing skills?

TopSpot: @Op, nice work. Of the many graduates I have seen many find difficult to express themselves not to talk of putting their thougts in writing. How are u able to develop these fascinating writing skills?

Thanks. You have made a valid point about the importance of communication skills. As a matter of fact, it is as if you are reading my storyline.
It will interest you to know that eventhough I did exceptionally well in English Language in my WASSCE, there was a time I was far from being as good as I am now. I used to be an average communicator and I once struggled when expressing myself, both in speaking and writing. But I have since improved and I am still improving.
I shall reveal how I develop myself in the course of my story.

@ALL, I will update the thread as soon as I'm back. I'm still out of town.

#Subscribing#
this is the kind of inspirating thread one needs in 2014. Have learnt from what i read so far, and still expecting more.
Great work op, God bless you for sharing your time with us despite your tight schedule.

I'm back. I will continue..............

PRE-NYSC AND NYSC DAYS

After my graduation I was sad and depressed because I didn't graduate with a first class. I never imagined my life without a first class. It haunted me for long, and to be sincere, it took me more than a year to fully recover from it. I feared for the job market because I felt I was disadvantaged age-wise, especially with my 'pure-water' 2-1 degree. I stayed at home for 6 months after graduation before I was mobilized for service. During that period, I whiled away time by teaching in a secondary school. I also began subscribing for job email alerts, and started reading online job websites and the famous Guardian newspaper. Eventhough I wasn't eligible to apply, I started studying the pattern of job vacancies. I was always interested in the companies that were recruiting and their requirements. I wrote my first amateur CV upon graduation. I have since refined my CV writing skills. Thank God I don't have to write personal CVs again, at least not anytime soon. I will only review people's CV's from time to time. I will talk a bit about good CV writing later in the thread.
I taught in a public secondary school during my NYSC days. This gave me ample time to socialize and also prepare for the labour market. Many of my colleagues 'worked' their service to Lagos where they served in big organizations I could only dream of. But I made use of the only resource I had - TIME. I started reading about how to how to write good CVs and prepare for interviews. I also started putting in my applications 6 months to the end of my service year. I applied for the PTDF overseas scholarship. I learnt about various job sites during this period. One surprising fact is that I observed that many of my fellow 'corpers' had little or no information about job hunting, CV writing, interview skills and presentation. A lot of corp members could not write a simple CV. Many had little or no computer knowledge. Many had very poor writing skills. With my basic CV writing art, I had to help many of the corps members to write their CV's especially those about to pass out. In many cases, I followed them to the cyber cafe to create emails for them and make online applications for them (then the internet was accessible as it is today). I still know many graduates today that cannot write and speak properly. Many of them are still without job or are currently underemployed. And I doubt if they can improve their employment status if they don't make themselves employable. This leads me to lesson #5.

LESSON 5: Basic writing skills, good communication skills and computer literacy are 3 fundamental elements of employability. When it is said that many Nigerian graduates are unemployable, they simply mean they lack simple communication skills most of the time. They simply cannot speak, write or express themselves comprehensibly enough. It's unfortunate but this is true in some cases. In addition, it is simply unacceptable to be a computer illiterate in this information age. Many job vacancies are posted online and most information are electronic in nature. I have a friend (from the same village) who studied accounting. He is young and sharp but he could hardly speak or write English without grammatical errors due to poor primary and secondary education. He went for various interviews during his NYSC days but was not successful in any. I had to encourage him to start reading books and writing. I also advised him to get a good part-time English teacher, if possible. Guess what? He got one. Today, he is gainfully employed in a bank. If you are poor in communication, start working on it now! The secret is practice. Practice, practice, practice! There is no alternative. Communication skill is quite important in oral interview stage, and I will elaborate on that when I get there. You don't have to be an orator like Barack Obama, or Martin Luther King Jr. But you need to be able to comprehend others, and be able to express yourself in a formal setting. My communication skills was not as good as it is now. I developed it with constant practice and discipline. As a matter of fact, I am not a gifted orator. I am still improving on my presentation skills. Till date, I still practice ahead of time before I make formal presentations in meetings, except if it is impromptu. Presentation skill is also important for career progression. Good presentation skills gives a positive impression about your intellectual and leadership ability (even if it is just an impression!).
That is why I feel pity for many job seekers who can hardly write properly but will keep using shorthand. Posting and commenting clearly on forums like Nairaland is one of the ways of improving your writing skills.

Learning in Progress.

Thank you for taking your time out to educate and inspire others. God bless you with more knowledge.

*following*....expecting more....

This was one of the most important threads in Career Section.I recall the posts by Xfire,Emperoh,Darell and co were compiled by someone. . .those who have the pdf doc or Ms Doc should provide a link.

His contributions are still there on Jarushub.com for all to see.

Who ate up all the pages?

MissIndependent: Who ate up all the pages?

hackers did. So sad

MissIndependent: Who ate up all the pages?

hackers did. So sad

OMG! Tell me this didn't happen to this wonderful thread.

Lesson Learnt: Always backup your Data no matter what your protection may be.

Nice thread. This is the best thread I've set my eyes on so far.

Its unfortunate that our dear nairaland suffered a major blow. May God restored the site. Pls how do we revive this thread, i've been a dedicated follower so far. My x-fire, how do we regain those important concepts, clues and valuable info. Looking forward to a positive response, thanks Sir.

Anyone to provide the link to download the compiled posts?

This was the major thread I wiped foe wen I noticed nl was hacked. Where do we start from?

Someone please hold me! Page 1!!!!out of more than 30pages?ewoooooo!!!....The people who did this no try at all. What are we going to do now?

Please who have the link to all dragnet folders and all other aptitude test? The folder is present here before Nairaland was hacked. My system got crashed as I urgently need all those folders for test preparation. Thanks and God bless in advance.

My favorite thread

san4real05: Please who have the link to all dragnet folders and all other aptitude test? The folder is present here before Nairaland was hacked. My system got crashed as I urgently need all those folders for test preparation. Thanks and God bless in advance.

Here is the LINK

Fourcade: This was one of the most important threads in Career Section.I recall the posts by Xfire,Emperoh,Darell and co were compiled by someone. . .those who have the pdf doc or Ms Doc should provide a link.

His contributions are still there on Jarushub.com for all to see.

Here you go

kalunomics: Here you go

Good job.

what is happening here

The setback even affected me as I joined Nairaland after January. My username was wiped in the heavy data loss.
I had to re-register my username.

Xfire, darellrivers, bigdreams, therealadonye, etc. where are you? Xfire, you promised to update once in a week. We haven't seen you after the Nairaland attack.

Moderators: this thread used to be permanently located on the front page of the career section before the data loss. Kindly move it back to the permanent position in the career front page. You should even take the thread once again to Nairaland front page.

Xfire, come revive the thread.

Still here..

Mixty: The setback even affected me as I joined Nairaland after January. My username was wiped in the heavy data loss.
I had to re-register my username.

Xfire, darellrivers, bigdreams, therealadonye, etc. where are you? Xfire, you promised to update once in a week. We haven't seen you after the Nairaland attack.

Moderators: this thread used to be permanently located on the front page of the career section before the data loss. Kindly move it back to the permanent position in the career front page. You should even take the thread once again to Nairaland front page.

Xfire, come revive the thread.

Ehimenboy: *following*....expecting more....

Wow! So I posted on the 2nd page of this thread?!

@xfire....kudos for your great works here....may the almighty God continue to lift you up......abeg...I really need you to help me review my CV...please can u give me your e-mail address so I can toward it.

Thanks man

its a pity and very painful that our data was lost, where do we start from?