Another wave of recession is here , many would be affected , very few will benefit from it. This is me thinking out loud , what's the next best move , some people are already buying shares , others think prices will continue to fall. Come rain , come sunshine we remain positive and hopeful.

oludanobi:
Another wave of recession is here , many would be affected , very few will benefit from it. This is me thinking out loud , what's the next best move , some people are already buying shares , others think prices will continue to fall. Come rain , come sunshine we remain positive and hopeful.

Omo it's getting scary o! So what's the next best move??

Thermodynamics:


Hmmm, I wonder how people travel to the U.S and still miss a county like Nigeria.
Guess people always long for what they don't have wether good or bad, it's really crazy.

At a point in time, you find it difficult to fit into the system and opportunities reduces due to age factor. If naija can fix electricity and security, you will witness exodus of ppl from western world but haven said that, those countries are light years ahead of naija.

Nice thread, following!

oludanobi:
Another wave of recession is here , many would be affected , very few will benefit from it. This is me thinking out loud , what's the next best move , some people are already buying shares , others think prices will continue to fall. Come rain , come sunshine we remain positive and hopeful.

Here's my 2c. If you're invested in the market and took a hit, stay in for the long run. These are still unrealized paper losses until you actually sell. The market is rebounding and appears to be on track for a full recovery sooner than anticipated with the hope that we don't see a resurgence/uptick of covid 19 cases and fatalities. At a minimum, a re-balance of your investment portfolio should be explored. I did this when the market hit bottom with bonds up and stocks down. I moved investments out of bonds into stocks and it has paid off big as stocks rebounded.

stonemasonn:
Omo it's getting scary o! So what's the next best move??

Only if I knew , I like Mancala's advice though. I am also trying to anticipate what most people would need in the short term and long term and position myself to meet some of those needs.

oludanobi:


Only if I knew , I like Mancala's advice though. I am also trying to anticipate what most people would need in the short term and long term and position myself to meet some of those needs.

We’re still waiting sir. You should come and update your thread

I wouldn't trade my years in Nigeria for anything , you could say I am proudly Nigerian , not necessarily of the entity that is Nigeria but for how it shaped me. Somehow I am glad my first visa application as a teenager was denied , I think I would not have fully understood the struggle that makes one grounded. I learnt many things after in my late teens into my late twenties and undergraduate life in Nigeria gave me another degree, from the School of Hard Knocks.

I am thankful I don’t carry the burden of growing up as a minority, I worry about the impact that has on black kids and if it is a fair price to pay as I convince myself that my kids are better off outside Nigeria than in it. It is a multifaceted burden, at first they get taught about a lot of history and traditions that is not theirs and if they would be taught anything about people like them, it is usually a skewed, massively played down version of history that briefly mentions slavery and lays emphasis on how that was a different era as if to make it acceptable. There is also the gradual realization that a lot of people do not look like them and that people treat them differently and expect them to behave differently. The one that breaks my heart the most is when these kids start to grow up and finally go to the motherland , the cultural shock and how they are treated comes with the rude awakening - they don’t really belong there either.
The result of this is a sense of loss, anger and a complex. I am thankful I didn’t grow up a minority , it makes me somewhat unaware of my difference in a white man's world and I don’t have Imposter's Syndrome whenever I am in a room full of people that don’t look like me. I stand everywhere, yes some people would try me and even question why I am where I am but that’s not my problem, it's theirs.

The beauty of dealing with setbacks is that it makes us resilient and to navigate this world we definitely need a healthy reserve of it. Chai! I have had my own fair share of setbacks o, from my first heartbreak to my first D, E or F, to not getting a job I really wanted and worst of all to the loss of a friend or a loved one. Some of these events knocked me flat out, but still I managed to stand and keep moving, it helps put things in perspective when challenges come as they do and will continue to, I am able to cope because I have been through worse. I am careful not to say I am strong or that people who cannot cope are weak, I just think certain experiences better prepares you for dealing with adversities. I am one of the lucky ones, lucky enough not to be consumed by those adversities and lucky enough to see them as tools that help me cope with future challenges.

There is an interesting school of thought that says Naija no dey carry last, and that if you survived in Nigeria you can make it anywhere else. It suggests that we are super smart beings and more intelligent than most, as if our gods have blessed us with abilities in abundance. While I don’t believe this is true or think there is any scientific evidence behind it, it is a good confidence booster. The feeling of "I be Naija now" and as a result I am infallible. A lot of us feel that, but it must be controlled so we don’t come across as arrogant, there is a very thin line between confidence and arrogance.

I think of these as the Nigerian gift, without which my journey will definitely have been different. I remain proud of my roots and who knows, I may return one day, not just yet though.

This is very sensitive post. Full of a lot of emotions. One that I can't really relate with, but I can at least get a sense of what you mean through the tone of your writing.

LogTM:
This is very sensitive post. Full of a lot of emotions. One that I can't really relate with, but I can at least get a sense of what you mean through the tone of your writing.

Thank you ! For your old and new response , I was going to reply to the old one but then I got carried away. I must say I haven't mastered the art of coping with "Otherism" , I am still learning , each scenario still shocks and stops me in my tracks , I made up my mind to always react because I shouldn't be responsible for people's ignorance . I wonder if it is innate though , we find ourselves on either side of the coin and the story changes and we quickly forget , why are we quick to point out how people are different from us and automatically infer that the difference we see makes them less . Over the years I have learnt to pay attention to people's values , I am less bothered about if people look or sound like me or even if they love the same sex as me , I am more interested in what they value most .

Sadly on the same they we posted another ignorant American knelt down on George Floyd's neck and just forgot his knee there until he died, that happened in a country I chose to live because I believed it is better than the motherland, my kids look like George Floyd and this is 2020.

PS- I liked your old response better but I guess you may not have the luxury of anonymity like I do

oludanobi:

My people , some of you are vexing already , please no vex , let's focus on enjoying the thread . Let us respect and address others the way we want to be addressed . Thank you !


Since there already is an ongoing connversation about why someone left or why they came back , I'll write on that even though I didn't plan to until later .

The drive to leave and the reasons differs , actually it felt more like being pushed out. Pushed out because it is not a choice many would have ordinarily made. Exciting as idea of 'the abroad' is , leaving friends, family and life as you know it can be somewhat daunting. For some it comes with a huge wave of depression during your first month (watch out for that one).

Poverty is merciless bastard though , it can turn a make a smart person look like a fool and make people do unthinkable things. I remember a conversation with my course mate then , he had applied for a few visas unsuccessfully and was about to try one more time , if that failed he planned to go the long route . He already had his journey mapped , Nigeria to Cameroun , all the way to Libya and then crossing the Mediterranean sea into Italy. I laughed at him and told him that was a foolish idea . Sometimes you can't understand people's decisions or rationales unless you've walked in their shoes. Thankfully he didn't have to , if this has crossed your mind or you are contemplating it , PLEASE DONT , IT IS SUICIDE !

I found Nigeria confusing , all the morals that were engrained in us with serious beating and frog jumps gradually became less important as we entered our late teens.Teachers helping us cheat , touching the fine girls amongst us , lecturers selling hand out , religious leaders not practicing what they preached . I mean why teach me about honesty and integrity only to introduce 'sharpness ' many years later , I could have just spent all those years preparing to be sharp. I mean the end justified the means - all the time.

Like many people I have many weird and wonderful examples ( a few posts on that in the future ) , in the end I just strongly felt there had to be an alternative and that is what I sought . I remember having multiple conversations with friends and family and some would say "You could have been X by now if you stayed " , truth is they were no guarantees and all a man wanted was some peace of mind and sanity .


The flip side to this is the longing , after you achieve all that it is that you were after in the first place , you start to miss the motherland , very little things start to get to you , all the discrimination you endured before starts to feel utterly and unacceptable because in the end there is no place like home Home however is wherever you make it .

I guess your folks were affected by SAP from your post. That policy was enough to change one's orientation about Nigeria and that is my first foot forward for all my applications because it had its strong impact.

Lionlee216 go sleep bro

What happened to George Floyd was not just outrageous and inexcusable, it was also illegal as per police procedure. I am glad there is a legal system in place to bring justice to the situation, but this doesn't bring George back. For him, the damage is irreparable. It is appalling that some members of the police force in the US think they can get away with anything, but we thank God that cell phones have brought a lot of injustice to light. I hate to say this, but the current political climate is one reason why a lot of these brazen attacks on minorities is happening now.

Mancala:
What happened to George Floyd was not just outrageous and inexcusable, it was also illegal as per police procedure. I am glad there is a legal system in place to bring justice to the situation, but this doesn't bring George back. For him, the damage is irreparable. It is appalling that some members of the police force in the US think they can get away with anything, but we thank God that cell phones have brought a lot of injustice to light. I hate to say this, but the current political climate is one reason why a lot of these brazen attacks on minorities is happening now.

But then the murderers were "fired"
That ain't justice, they deserve to rot in jail. But it still won't bring George back.
It's just traumatizing aswear, haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Every time I close my eyes it just keep replaying. RIP to the poor guy

Sparrow0:

But then the murderers were "fired"
That ain't justice, they deserve to rot in jail. But it still won't bring George back.
It's just traumatizing aswear, haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Every time I close my eyes it just keep replaying. RIP to the poor guy

Firing is just the first step, I hope. They will most likely face criminal charges (likely both state and federal), and after that civil damages law suits. If they are convicted, they will likely face persecution from the prison population during their entire stay and may have to be in solitary. The system works great when it does, but this nonsense has got to stop.

Mancala:


Firing is just the first step, I hope. They will most likely face criminal charges (likely both state and federal), and after that civil damages law suits. If they are convicted, they will likely face persecution from the prison population during their entire stay and may have to be in solitary. The system works great when it does, but this nonsense has got to stop.

I hope so

They hate you with passion because you don't look like them. They don't want you to be near or around them. They'll always ask where you come from despite living there for ages.

Mancala:


Firing is just the first step, I hope. They will most likely face criminal charges (likely both state and federal), and after that civil damages law suits. If they are convicted, they will likely face persecution from the prison population during their entire stay and may have to be in solitary. The system works great when it does, but this nonsense has got to stop.

I soo want to believe you , but history says otherwise , still we must hope .

Drenimarcus:
Lionlee216 go sleep bro

I pretended I didnt see this lol

Diary mode : London, Liverpool st - 2019

I decided to chat with the young Security Guard at the office today , we have been giving ourselves the "nod" since I started but I was curious to know his story. He didn’t sound like an immigrant , he is definitely British, so why is he doing this job? He sounds educated and very polite, I wonder if the older Ghanian Security Guard is his uncle and hooked him up with the job. Let's call him Young G.

I spoke to the older man too, he asked me where I was from and when I said Nigeria, he had this knowing smile and said he wasn’t surprised. A curious me asked why he wasn’t surprised and he went on to talk about how Nigerians were very ambitious and always strived to be better. He spoke about how a lot of the Nigerians that they started together many years ago were well off now. Again I asked nicely what happened to him, his response "Well a combination of things, pressure to quickly settle down from home, then pressure to build back home and before you know it, you have kids and your priorities shift and then you are stuck". I could see the regret in his eyes, I respectfully said it's never too late. We'll call him …. Old G. I didn’t register my disapproval of building back home when you have no plans to return there and you are still renting a small apartment in London. I also didn’t tell him that a lot of Nigerians were stuck too, some people move and some people don’t.

He told me he has was an Msc in Entrepreneurship student, he graduated with a 2:1 Bsc and decided to immediately enroll for his Masters and has not been able to secure a job, when I asked what he really wants to do, he said he wanted to be an entrepreneur because he liked networking. I asked if he would like for me to review his CV and he gladly agreed and sent it over. His CV was very basic so I politely made some recommendations and asked him to update and send it back to me .

Current day :

As I write this I still haven't received an updated CV from Young G, I sent him a text about 7 months later and he was still looking for work, I feel his struggle, it's slightly different for a black person in London, even though there are a lot of black people in London, most black people you see in corporate London are securing the building or cleaning it, no shame in that though, I have done both but again perhaps I got lucky. People like Young G didn’t have anyone to support them to get into the corporate world, I mean we worked in a bank so how come no one even bothered to give him a shot at an interview with his 2:1 in Accounting . I don’t want to say Young G is lazy but all I asked him to do was update the CV and send it to me , maybe he was just tired or maybe he didn’t understand why I was interested. I was interested because I was tired of being one of the 2 percent of blacks in the corporate world, in most meeting rooms I was the only black person. It is important to me that I contribute to changing those statistics and changing that narrative.

I wonder why Young G decided to go for an Msc straight after his undergrad, I mean he didn’t stay home for 3 months, it's not like he needed the Masters as a means to live in the country , he was born British for god's sake! Perhaps it was pressure from his immigrant parents, the same pressure that made him take the security job, the misconception that it is better to be doing something than stay home doing nothing. In my opinion staying home to research and improve your chances of landing a dream job is way better than starting a job you could be stuck in. Young G wasn’t even good at networking, he was polite but shy, he just liked the idea of it and he let himself get swept up by the entrepreneur buzz. We worked in a building that had at least 8 companies, surely someone good in networking would have networked with someone who would at least get him an interview.

I am still very angry at the murder of George Floyd and how black people are being treated, but of course I choose to write about what we can do to change that narrative. It is important that every black person in a position to help a fellow black does so, sometimes it's not even about money, it's sharing advice , listening and sometimes mentoring. Apathy is not an option and being complacent like Old G is not an option either. Please lend a helping hand !

PS : 90% of black people I have met in the corporate world are indeed Nigerians, It could just be me or Old G could be right, either way I remain proudly Nigerian but I am under no illusions that we are smarter than others, we are just uniquely different !

oludanobi:
Diary mode : London, Liverpool st - 2019

I decided to chat with the young Security Guard at the office today , we have been giving ourselves the "nod" since I started but I was curious to know his story. He didn’t sound like an immigrant , he is definitely British, so why is he doing this job? He sounds educated and very polite, I wonder if the older Ghanian Security Guard is his uncle and hooked him up with the job. Let's call him Young G.

I spoke to the older man too, he asked me where I was from and when I said Nigeria, he had this knowing smile and said he wasn’t surprised. A curious me asked why he wasn’t surprised and he went on to talk about how Nigerians were very ambitious and always strived to be better. He spoke about how a lot of the Nigerians that they started together many years ago were well off now. Again I asked nicely what happened to him, his response "Well a combination of things, pressure to quickly settle down from home, then pressure to build back home and before you know it, you have kids and your priorities shift and then you are stuck". I could see the regret in his eyes, I respectfully said it's never too late. We'll call him …. Old G. I didn’t register my disapproval of building back home when you have no plans to return there and you are still renting a small apartment in London. I also didn’t tell him that a lot of Nigerians were stuck too, some people move and some people don’t.

He told me he has was an Msc in Entrepreneurship student, he graduated with a 2:1 Bsc and decided to immediately enroll for his Masters and has not been able to secure a job, when I asked what he really wants to do, he said he wanted to be an entrepreneur because he liked networking. I asked if he would like for me to review his CV and he gladly agreed and sent it over. His CV was very basic so I politely made some recommendations and asked him to update and send it back to me .

Current day :

As I write this I still haven't received an updated CV from Young G, I sent him a text about 7 months later and he was still looking for work, I feel his struggle, it's slightly different for a black person in London, even though there are a lot of black people in London, most black people you see in corporate London are securing the building or cleaning it, no shame in that though, I have done both but again perhaps I got lucky. People like Young G didn’t have anyone to support them to get into the corporate world, I mean we worked in a bank so how come no one even bothered to give him a shot at an interview with his 2:1 in Accounting . I don’t want to say Young G is lazy but all I asked him to do was update the CV and send it to me , maybe he was just tired or maybe he didn’t understand why I was interested. I was interested because I was tired of being one of the 2 percent of blacks in the corporate world, in most meeting rooms I was the only black person. It is important to me that I contribute to changing those statistics and changing that narrative.

I wonder why Young G decided to go for an Msc straight after his undergrad, I mean he didn’t stay home for 3 months, it's not like he needed the Masters as a means to live in the country , he was born British for god's sake! Perhaps it was pressure from his immigrant parents, the same pressure that made him take the security job, the misconception that it is better to be doing something than stay home doing nothing. In my opinion staying home to research and improve your chances of landing a dream job is way better than starting a job you could be stuck in. Young G wasn’t even good at networking, he was polite but shy, he just liked the idea of it and he let himself get swept up by the entrepreneur buzz. We worked in a building that had at least 8 companies, surely someone good in networking would have networked with someone who would at least get him an interview.

I am still very angry at the murder of George Floyd and how black people are being treated, but of course I choose to write about what we can do to change that narrative. It is important that every black person in a position to help a fellow black does so, sometimes it's not even about money, it's sharing advice , listening and sometimes mentoring. Apathy is not an option and being complacent like Old G is not an option either. Please lend a helping hand !

PS : 90% of black people I have met in the corporate world are indeed Nigerians, It could just be me or Old G could be right, either way I remain proudly Nigerian but I am under no illusions that we are smarter than others, we are just uniquely different !

Thank you! That’s how the Jews did it. They went from being in extinction to being super players in the financial sector. But we blacks hoard information from each other. We would rather buy ice watches and lots of cars than empower fellow blacks. It is so sad.

bring it on

Chapter X - Interviews

I only attended 2 interviews in Nigeria , one of them was a connect via my dad who referred me to another friend , the man made me travel all the way to his office for a 3 min chat and formed that he was busy . I don't remember the details , only that he shouted at me when I called for a follow up . Needless to say I didn't get that job.

The second one was with a bank, I remember writing the entrance test and leaving when I had enough , there must have been thousands of us and man the exam was hard and the room was super hot , so I did what I could and just left , I felt sorry for some people that wore suit to take the exam , why ?? The person marking the exam doesn't care what you were wearing . My pride didn’t let me use my connects this time , I didn't tell anyone that I applied until after the interview . I hope but doubt that the recruitment process has improved since then. I mean to get selected to come and write test sef was a chore , you had to count your blessings for each stage you scaled through and don't even get me started with all those foolish companies that call you for 7 stages , I mean WTF do you need me to explain to you 7 times! Am I applying to be the president.

There must have been at least 150 of us that attended this interview , we must have all arrived around 9 or 10 in the morning and I didn't finish until after 7 , I remember it was after 7 because I was fasting on that day and didn't break until I left . Most of that time was spent just waiting . Around 5pm I got called in with a group of about 7 others to discuss how to solve the problem of unrest in the Niger Delta . Come and see people blowing grammar , this was my first experience with overambitious candidates , you know those that automatically assume everyone else came to watch them speak . I had to really raise my voice in order to be heard . I remember someone saying the people of Niger Delta needed reorientation ( in his mind he was blowing grammar), I pointed out that these people were happy fishing and enjoying their lives before our ogas decided to extract oil , destroy their means of livelihood without giving them an alternative and then brazenly use all the proceeds to build Abuja , reorientation my foot ! I want to believe I got a few points in , then they sent all of us out and called us one by one for face to face. One of the other candidates said he ran into one of the interviewers in front of the toilet and the guy said - "You are X , you finished with a 1st in Economics abi, I studied Economics too , I'm ready for you " . I think that shook my guy a bit. A lot of the other candidates had MSc, fair to say 90% of the people there were smart ( if you could pass that exam you are book smart ) .

The first question I got asked was "What is Statistics ?" followed by "What is data ? " then "What is information ?", I studied Mathematics and Statistics for 5 years and that is the best they could ask me , really ? They asked me about my work experience and I told them I had worked in London answering calls so I had customer service experience , I quickly regretted it because one of the interviewers pointed out it wasn't real customer service since it was on the phone. Who asked me to mention London sef , all that did was get me perceived as proud. They asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years and when I mentioned that I wanted to be CFA certified they asked me what CFA was ? Apparently they hadn't heard of it , but god forbid they didn't know about what this boy from London was talking about . They looked me in the eye and said I was lying , I tried to explained that I had researched CIMA, ACCA and all but they weren't having it. This was in 2007 and as I said in a previous post , I did a lot of research scouring through jobsites for high paying jobs so I could plan my career , I also had some guidance from a young accountant then ( he is probably a chairman in his country now ) . Anyways their response was "You think you can just come here and bamboozle us ".

After I finished the interview , I activated my connects, I had done my part.

I am purposely not drawing any conclusions about interviewing in Nigeria, I only did 2 so I feel I don’t have enough experience , feel free to share yours .

One of my first interviews in UK was with Three for a call center job, simple application process online and the first stage was a telephone interview . It was mostly scenario based questions . One of them was "Tell me about a time when you displayed exceptional customer service ", my imagination ran wild and I told them about being very patient with a deaf and dumb customer so that I could communicate with him and meet his needs . In my mind I killed the interview , now I am thinking " What a foolish response , any sensible person would have known that's a lie ", needless to say I didn’t get past that stage. Interesting thing about most UK interviews is that people would hardly call you out when you are lying . Many years later I would interview a guy that claimed to single handedly deploy SAP , yes that's what he said and I asked him if he meant part of a team and my guy kept on saying he did it all by himself , my colleague and I didn't even bother thinking about him for the role .

One UK interview that I always comes to mind was for a Software Tester role that was paying 27k GBP/annum, this was pre 2010 so that was cool money, actually it is still not a bad starting salary for graduates now. As I sat in the reception lobby a fellow black brother saw me and tried to give me expo, told me about DNS and asked if I knew SQL. I had been reading on W3school. My interviewer was a friendly white guy, he asked me about DNS and what I had found most challenging in my career, I honestly said Calculus and we had a chat about that. Then the SQL came, he gave me paper and pencil, described tables to me and asked how I would select from 1 table, I wrote the query so he decided to give me another one, this time around he asked me to select from 2 tables. I knew I dint know that one, I was hoping they wouldn’t ask me about 2 tables because I struggled with it when I studied it the day before, anyways I went ahead and wrote down some gibberish , my guy looked at it and said "Interesting, I haven't seen this method before , I'll have to try it out".

The recruiting agent called me the next day to give me some feed back, they really liked me and were impressed with most of my responses, in the end they were disappointed that I was too adamant to admit that I didn’t know how to join 2 tables , the way they saw it they were looking for someone who wasn’t afraid to ask for help when needed. All I had to do was simply say "I don’t know " . Someone had told me before to never say I don’t know during an interview, I quickly filed that into the foolish advise section of my memory. This one still pains me till today.

I'll have to split this one into multiple posts, more on UK interviews and US interviews later.

Ride on Op. we’re following.

oludanobi:
Chapter X - Interviews

I only attended 2 interviews in Nigeria , one of them was a connect via my dad who referred me to another friend , the man made me travel all the way to his office for a 3 min chat and formed that he was busy . I don't remember the details , only that he shouted at me when I called for a follow up . Needless to say I didn't get that job.

The second one was with a bank, I remember writing the entrance test and leaving when I had enough , there must have been thousands of us and man the exam was hard and the room was super hot , so I did what I could and just left , I felt sorry for some people that wore suit to take the exam , why ?? The person marking the exam doesn't care what you were wearing . My pride didn’t let me use my connects this time , I didn't tell anyone that I applied until after the interview . I hope but doubt that the recruitment process has improved since then. I mean to get selected to come and write test sef was a chore , you had to count your blessings for each stage you scaled through and don't even get me started with all those foolish companies that call you for 7 stages , I mean WTF do you need me to explain to you 7 times! Am I applying to be the president.

There must have been at least 150 of us that attended this interview , we must have all arrived around 9 or 10 in the morning and I didn't finish until after 7 , I remember it was after 7 because I was fasting on that day and didn't break until I left . Most of that time was spent just waiting . Around 5pm I got called in with a group of about 7 others to discuss how to solve the problem of unrest in the Niger Delta . Come and see people blowing grammar , this was my first experience with overambitious candidates , you know those that automatically assume everyone else came to watch them speak . I had to really raise my voice in order to be heard . I remember someone saying the people of Niger Delta needed reorientation ( in his mind he was blowing grammar), I pointed out that these people were happy fishing and enjoying their lives before our ogas decided to extract oil , destroy their means of livelihood without giving them an alternative and then brazenly use all the proceeds to build Abuja , reorientation my foot ! I want to believe I got a few points in , then they sent all of us out and called us one by one for face to face. One of the other candidates said he ran into one of the interviewers in front of the toilet and the guy said - "You are X , you finished with a 1st in Economics abi, I studied Economics too , I'm ready for you " . I think that shook my guy a bit. A lot of the other candidates had MSc, fair to say 90% of the people there were smart ( if you could pass that exam you are book smart ) .

The first question I got asked was "What is Statistics ?" followed by "What is data ? " then "What is information ?", I studied Mathematics and Statistics for 5 years and that is the best they could ask me , really ? They asked me about my work experience and I told them I had worked in London answering calls so I had customer service experience , I quickly regretted it because one of the interviewers pointed out it wasn't real customer service since it was on the phone. Who asked me to mention London sef , all that did was get me perceived as proud. They asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years and when I mentioned that I wanted to be CFA certified they asked me what CFA was ? Apparently they hadn't heard of it , but god forbid they didn't know about what this boy from London was talking about . They looked me in the eye and said I was lying , I tried to explained that I had researched CIMA, ACCA and all but they weren't having it. This was in 2007 and as I said in a previous post , I did a lot of research scouring through jobsites for high paying jobs so I could plan my career , I also had some guidance from a young accountant then ( he is probably a chairman in his country now ) . Anyways their response was "You think you can just come here and bamboozle us ".

After I finished the interview , I activated my connects, had done my part.

I am purposely not drawing any conclusions about interviewing in Nigeria, I only did 2 so I feel I don’t have enough experience , feel free to share yours .

One of my first interviews in UK was with Three for a call center job, simple application process online and the first stage was a telephone interview . It was mostly scenario based questions . One of them was "Tell me about a time when you displayed exceptional customer service ", my imagination ran wild and I told them about being very patient with a deaf and dumb customer so that I could communicate with him and meet his needs . In my mind I killed the interview , now I am thinking " What a foolish response , any sensible person would have known that's a lie ", needless to say I didn’t get past that stage. Interesting thing about most UK interviews is that people would hardly call you out when you are lying . Many years later I would interview a guy that claimed to single handedly deploy SAP , yes that's what he said and I asked him if he meant part of a team and my guy kept on saying he did it all by himself , my colleague and I didn't even bother thinking about him for the role .

One UK interview that I always comes to mind was for a Software Tester role that was paying 27k GBP/annum, this was pre 2010 so that was cool money, actually it is still not a bad starting salary for graduates now. As I sat in the reception lobby a fellow black brother saw me and tried to give me expo, told me about DNS and asked if I knew SQL. I had been reading on W3school. My interviewer was a friendly white guy, he asked me about DNS and what I had found most challenging in my career, I honestly said Calculus and we had a chat about that. Then the SQL came, he gave me paper and pencil, described tables to me and asked how I would select from 1 table, I wrote the query so he decided to give me another one, this time around he asked me to select from 2 tables. I knew I dint know that one, I was hoping they wouldn’t ask me about 2 tables because I struggled with it when I studied it the day before, anyways I went ahead and wrote down some gibberish , my guy looked at it and said "Interesting, I haven't seen this method before , I'll have to try it out".

The recruiting agent called me the next day to give me some feed back, they really liked me and were impressed with most of my responses, in the end they were disappointed that I was too adamant to admit that I didn’t know how to join 2 tables , the way they saw it they were looking for someone who wasn’t afraid to ask for help when needed. All I had to do was simply say "I don’t know " . Someone had told me before to never say I don’t know during an interview, I quickly filed that into the foolish advise section of my memory. This one still pains me till today.

I'll have to split this one into multiple posts, more on UK interviews and US interviews later.

Interviews cont'd -

Some of my UK jobs didn't necessarily require an interview, the security job, cleaning job and factory jobs only required registering at the agency , they usually give you basic math and english test which only stark illiterates struggle with .

Ah I remember my job selling paint ball tickets on the high street , the owner of the company was a young black guy , he interviewed me at Burger King / McDonalds, I don't remember the interview properly but I remember the foolish guy saying I should try to dress properly when coming to work , apparently the trouser my tailor at Tejuosho market sewed for me and a £5 shirt from one of the open markets in London wasn't a good enough combination . I only did the job for 1 day , that's 7 hours of standing in the middle of the high street trying to sell stuff . Imagine standing on Ojuelegba road and shouting " Anyone for paint balling " , only difference was it was a little cold ( it was summer so it wasn't too bad ) , still it was commission based and for the 7 hours of hard work I only got £10 because I was only able to sell 1 ticket , take away the £5 for the shirt and the £4 I spent on lunch and the £3 for transportation and well I just wasted my time really.

I had applied for this graduate Analyst job in a city far away , I applied for soo many jobs I lost count , a lot of those applications just resulted in the standard "We are sorry you have not been successful", sorry for your papa !
Anyways I got an invitation for an interview but I had to fly , that's £130 to attend the assessment center , broke immigrant like me . I emailed them to ask about reimbursement but unfortunately the contact I emailed was on leave so I didn't get a response. Eventually I decided to risk it all and attend - when you apply for hundreds of jobs and only get invited to a handful of interviews you can't really afford to be choosy . It was 3 stages , online assessment , presentation and interview .

I remember my stomach rumbling during the interview and I had to make a joke about it because I had not eaten , I got interviewed by 2 guys and they seemed really cool , they asked me about my MSc project and I try to summarize in lay man terms , then they asked if I knew Proc SQL - This SQL again ! I said I knew SQL but not Proc SQL , I didn't lie o , in case they gave me paper and pencil again . They also asked if I knew anything about Pay as You Go meters and we'll luckily for me , my mom's shop in Lagos had a prepayment meter so I just said - of course . The guys took me round the office , showed me the pool table and all , it was one of those interviews where you bond with the interviewers . I left feeling positive about it.

A week later I started getting anxious , I was travelling to Naija in a few weeks to get married in Osun , getting this job will really REALLY help . I got a call from one of the interviewers about 2 weeks later saying they were still considering me for the role. These were the Blackberry days ! One sunny afternoon in Naija I got an email from one of the interviewers asking me to call them, I quickly called the number in the email and the conversation went something like "I wanted to check if you were still interested in working for us … " of course I was interested. Most of the time in UK you get a phone call before you get sent an offer. During my first week of training , my trainer said "so you are the one that got the job my son applied for " , now imagine what was going through my mind when I heard that - black me, vs the son of someone who had spent over 20 years in the organization, the son had even worked as an Analyst for one of big computer manufacturers. I couldn’t believe it, that definitely couldn’t have happened in my fatherland , before that day I was team " They wont hire us because we are black" my perspective changed going forward, yes some people will not hire you because you are black but go in and put in your best, leave the rest for God. I would speak to the guys that hired me about this years, one was the manager(M) and the other the manager's manager(MM). When I spoke to MM about my surprise when I found out what I was up against , he said "We couldn’t have hired him, that's nepotism" and I had new found respect for him. M said he struggled with the decision and was leaning towards choosing me, he even had a conversation with his wife about wanting to take a chance on me and hoping I will be a good fit. In the end M made the decision because "It was the right thing to do", this remains one of my guiding principles till date. I made sure they didn’t regret hiring me , I don’t think I had ever worked so hard in my life, I even came to work during the weekends, anything to get the job done! M and MM remain my good friends till date.

Apologies for any typos, I had to rush to get this one out.

nice thread, by God's I will leave naija one day

Your thread has helped me with many life lessons

TheArchangel:
Your thread has helped me with many life lessons

[quote][/quote] glad you found it useful . Thank you !

Interviews cont'd


After about 21 months I started looking for a higher role , I had learnt so much and delivered so much in my role that I believed I could excel in a more senior role , the only way to get promoted was to actually apply for the roles .


Senior roles were a bit more thorough, you had to apply with a CV and Cover letter ( well tailored o and not just generic) , some had presentations / exercise and then competency based questions . Competency based was usually in the format of "Tell me about a time when you have demonstrated excellent leadership skills ?" , the expectation is that you have examples that are aligned with the companies values and skills required for the role . I usually answered these questions using the STAR approach

Situation , Task , Action , Result

In preparation I would write all the possible questions down and the answers . Then I would refine my answers to make them more powerful. Some UK organisations have interview packs so each set of questions is aligned to one or more of the companies values and the had a list of indicators used for scoring.

OK I am starting to feel this is boring

My first application for a senior role was to manage a technical team , this one was thorough, technical ( white board style) and then some competency based interview questions. A week later an external candidate was employed for the role and we secretly wished he would fail , he didn't , he actually became my manager .

M had since moved to another team and was now on the same grade as MM, there was an opening in his department which reported into another manager and M encouraged me to apply. This was my 3rd attempt and some self doubt was starting to creep in. Someone had warned me that the hiring for this role was crazy manager was a super smart but crazy woman . I didn't mind crazy. I called her to have a quick chat about the role before putting my application in, I think a part of me also wanted to gauge her craziness. I didnt notice any red flags so I went ahead.

I didn't get asked any technical questions , the first question was to talk about my career so far , they had read my CV and wanted to discuss a few things that piqued their interest . My CV was one of those that had some powerful figures on what I delivered and this made people curious and in some instances doubtful . I stopped lying on my CV after the SQL saga , plus this was an internal application so they could have easily verified . Other key questions were - Most impressive achievement and why do you think you are right for this role .

MM had helped me with my interview prep , the question of having no experience in managing teams came up in my 2 prior interviews and MM advised me to mention it before they even asked , so when they asked why I thought I was right for the role , I made sure I called out the elephant in the room .

I must have said something like " I know I haven't managed a team before but I have learnt from good managers on what to do and what not to do and I think one important thing is to manage the team the way I want to be managed , I will no doubt make mistakes but I will work hard and learn from my mistakes." , I didn't start my answer with that but I think I slotted it towards the end , I think they were pleased with my response.

I got a call from the hiring manager a week later saying she needed more time to make the decision , M said he would put in a word for me but he couldn't be overly pushy about it since he had only been in the team for 2 months and didn't really know the hiring manager ( plus she was crazy). The following week she called me to offer me the role and I was so excited, I accepted the minimum salary for the grade . I tried to go back to ask for more but she won't budge. Later I would find out the process got narrowed down to me and an external candidate who had a lot of managerial experience.

First task was to put a team together , that's how I went from interviewee to interviewer .

With each write up comes a another lesson. We’re with you.

HoliMaree:
They hate you with passion because you don't look like them. They don't want you to be near or around them. They'll always ask where you come from despite living there for ages.

Most times I get asked that, I reply by asking: Don't I look American or talk like one? Some would just apologies for such silly questions, others would want to justify their intent. Its so annoying.