Let me share my experience here maybe someone can learn from it, For any undergraduate reading this post, please make sure you come out with good grades and try as much as possible to read things outside of school work, I have come to realize that School alone does not cut in the Corporate world. In my short sojourn I have realized brilliance alone while very important but please add a little bit of outside knowledge (by being abreast of the latest happenings outside school) and that can be the difference between an ok job and a very good job. Most people might be wondering what I am driving at, I will get at it very soon.

Let me give a brief background on myself, I graduated in 2010 finished serving in 2011 and did not get my first job until 2013, truth is I was not a smart/brilliant student as I barely scaled through university, but one thing I had was access to information (Nairaland played a big part). I was always current on the latest trends in the world, read a lot of comments in the career section on Recruitment processes. There were times I was sad because I did not graduate with a good grade but then a recurring advice from the experienced guys on nairaland (dont want to mention names) back then was the importance of Professional certifications and how it aided in getting you to the front of the HR in Nigeria. I studied computer science so I decided to go down the Certification lane. I was lucky to have parents that supported me a bit financially by paying for some of the exams and I also paid for some with the money I saved from NYSC, before long I had my CCNP, Microsoft certifications (this ones were cheap back then 6500 per exam) and ITIL. I was also scammed into believing I will get a fantastic job after all these certifications but reality was different.

I knew I had to look for experience to match the certifications and true to the advices, the interviews started coming in Lagos, Abuja and so many other cities but no job came until 2013, got the first job and my first salary was 75k even with CCNP, Microsoft Exams and my ITIL. I had nothing to bargain when I had no real world experience, Seven months into the job I got another job double the pay and I moved from a net monthly income of 75k to 152k. When I got my second job I knew ok, the certifications do help, all it needed was patience. After settling down, I invested again in some sets of certifications.

Like I said earlier brilliance alone was not enough, I kept checking online blogs on the latest trends in the IT world, I discovered IT administration was becoming obsolete, companies were now outsourcing and shifting towards cloud deployment but then one role that kept up showing up was IT Security, so many posts on how there was shortage of professionals in the IT security so I decided to also follow the path since it was obvious IT security was the trending career path, with my CCNP knowledge i started reading books, it was easier to understand the concepts and then I took the certifications Comptia Security +, CCNA Security and CISSP. As soon as I wrote the CISSP exam I told myself i need to have a return on investment before I could write any more exams. Then I started looking for jobs because I was already tired of my job and my skill set was just being wasted because I was not doing anything related to IT security. I began my job search again and it took over a year after my CISSP to get my third job.

I have come to realise that brilliance alone is not enough to progress in life, for some it will come easy (uncles and brothers helping to get jobs) but for some of us, we have to go the hard way. In my own view, I will rank the three benefits for getting a good job in Nigeria.

1: Good grades (most important unless you want to go the hard way....professional qualifications)
2: Intelligence to read blogs/new and attend free events on latest happenings in your chosen field.
3: Networking with friends, uncles, and neighbours in your chosen field.

The recession is biting hard but people are still getting jobs, my friend changed jobs twice last year from a local company to a multinational company with double pay after he was laid off at the beginning of the year. To the currently unemployed reading this, stick in there the job is just round the corner, dont be too big to take a job in your chosen field and don't be too quick to take any job as it might lead to dissatisfaction.

For those whose parents advice on going on masters, while it is good in some chosen profession, I will suggest you work a bit say two years then try and make up your mind after then, Not all fields require a master degree initially especially in Nigeria to gain entry into them for those that require masters degreee for a foothold in such profession, Nairaland is a good source of information, make use it very well. My first job i got on nairaland, second one was advertised here and the third I did not bother to look for it here but i know it will be here. \

While searching for my third job i had a checklist of websites I check everyday after work. Below you will see them, they might help you as well, as there is no online job that is posted that any of this three sites will not pick.

1: Nairaland thread owned by Debbie.
2: hotnigerianjobs
3: justjobs
4:linkedin (wonder what went wrong the jobs section is .....)
5:ngcareers
6:fosad consulting
7:gvalliance
8:glassdoor.

I hope this post inspires you to read more sorry for the long post though.

Thank you bro... What you have just written has inspired me...

What has been the ROI with CISSP cert?

Hello locked out. Am a comp sci graduate and av bin really inspired. Please advice on d path to go. Am really interested in data security and ethical hacking. Wat certification would u tink i can take.
P.S: am a stater