₦airaland Forum

Ethel is a graduate of Computer Science from a reputable university in Ghana. She graduated a few years ago and her immediate family members have been pressurizing her to get a job. Job hunting has not been fun for her. For over two years, she struggled to get a job, she even went outside the sector of her discipline, yet, she did not get any job.

One day, during her job-hunting period, she was browsing through a job board and she saw a vacancy for a position in Computer Scientist at a reputable company in her city, she decided to apply for it. In her cover letter, she wrote about her skills and her passing grade at the University, which are basic requirements for a standard cover letter.

However, at the end of the letter, she wrote about how she had suffered for the last few years without a job. She also talked about her family problems, hoping to get sympathy from the hiring manager! In two weeks, she got a rejection letter, saying she was not a good fit for the position. She was back to job hunting!

She didn’t get over the shock until she spoke to us. After reviewing her application and her CV, we advised her to stop writing about her problems in any job application letter, to avoid being disqualified. She was a perfect fit for that job and she did not get it because she decided to involve the company in her personal problems.

At Lingo Africa, the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, we always tell our clients that no matter what they go through in their job hunting phase, they must never indicate it on their cover letters or during an interview.

Companies and organizations are not churches or charity organizations, they are profit-making ventures, they are looking for value, which they will pay for. It is as simple as that. They do not care how many years one has been jobless or their family problems! Just show them you can give them value for their money (salaries and benefits), nothing else matters. Please, learn from Ethel’s experience and do better.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/job-hunting-is-stressful-but-job-applications-are-not-for-complaints/

Lingo Africa.

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We hope they can do better. There's nothing like having your own money from a job that pays.

Linda, a Nigerian job seeker, happens to be a huge fan of a certain musician in her country. Her love for this musician, however, is not stronger than her professional identity, which she has built for four years. She is a smart and capable professional.

When the lockdown order was given in her community, she started using social media to follow this musician’s activities so as to keep herself entertained and to chase away boredom.

Also, Linda kept applying to jobs to ensure that when the lockdown was over, she would start working at a choice company.

One weekend, Linda saw a message on social media saying that her favorite musician had a show on Instagram Live. A few days later, she applied for a job that fit her identity and skills perfectly. She later got a Zoom interview invite from the company.

During the Zoom job interview, Linda answered all the questions perfectly. She proved to the interviewer that she understood the role and had the professional identity to pull off the duties involved. However, just before the interviewer ended the interview, he asked if she was an Instagram user, to which she answered in the affirmative.

The interviewer later shared a clip of her dancing half-naked on an Instagram Live show featuring her favorite musician. She was slightly drunk in the video as well. The interviewer told Linda she would have been hired, but for that one video and the company was moving forward from her to other candidates because they couldn’t work with someone who displayed nudity on social media.

This was a bitter lesson for Linda, who had never paid attention to such things as conduct on social media when it comes to landing a job with a reputable company.

Like we always tell our clients at Lingo Africa, the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, it is important to always be cautious of conduct and actions on social media, so as to avoid being seen as irresponsible by potential employers or business partners.

Your professional identity matters a lot, so, pay extra attention to what you are posting and doing on and off social media, employers carry out a lot of research on prospective employees, so, be wise!

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/identity-matters-for-everyone-interested-in-career-growth/

Lingo Africa.

Good evening!

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In this era of COVID-19, a lot of young and vibrant professionals have been fired from their jobs and they have lost their sources of livelihood. Many companies have said they cannot keep paying salaries while communities are on lockdown and they cannot institute working from home as they are not in the essential services sector.

This is understandable. However, we have it on good authority that some companies are taking advantage of the situation to lay off hundreds of work staff, while they retain upper management. A client of ours recently got an email from her office, where she was told that the office does not need her services anymore as they need to pay the salaries and benefits of senior staff.

Our client and several of her work colleagues were let go for the sake of paying higher cadre staff, not necessarily because they couldn’t afford to pay them but because they want the higher cadre staff to earn even more than they are already earning.

It was announced recently, that South African company, Woolworths will continue paying their staff as the upper management staff will take a pay cut for three months, so they can pay the lower cadre staff. This is the difference between companies that are compassionate enough to remember that their work staff is human after all and those who just want to make a profit at the expense of others.

Lingo Africa the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, has analyzed this situation and concluded that before anyone starts working in a company or honoring an invite to join companies, they must first of all;

Carry out your own research on the kind of work culture they have. This cannot be done just by a simple Google Search. One must also ask relevant questions. Who do you ask? The current staff members and the former staff. You will be surprised at the insights you will gain from asking the right questions.

After the conversations, you will be able to make informed decisions on whether you want to work with them or change companies.
Ask them directly during the interview. Interviewers usually give the floor to interviewees to ask relevant questions about the role or the company itself. This is the moment where you should be bold enough to ask questions that will reveal the kind of culture they operate in. Companies that do not ask if you have any questions as an interviewee, do not necessarily have an agenda, so, if they do not bring it up, you should bring it up politely.

After the pandemic is over and you attend a job interview, you can ask companies the kind of decisive action they took during the pandemic to ensure that their staff was protected.

Follow the trend of available information. Those who will work at companies that have a social media presence, they must leverage that to dig deeper. This is beyond just reading their posts, it is also about reading the comments under their posts. Comments are usually a revealer of either good or bad behavior not just of individuals but of companies.

So, put your social media listening skills to good use and you are likely to find out if that company is worth working for. It is true that jobs are hard to find, but would you want to work for a company that does not respect or regard its workers? Your mental health is as important as your financial status.

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/companies-have-the-tendency-to-abuse-workers-protect-yourself/

Lingo Africa.

Good afternoon!

This is a valid question, especially for those jobseekers who have been without work opportunities for many years or a couple of months after losing their jobs. It is expected that job seekers should send out CVs/Resumes for job openings.

However, what obtains in the mainstream is that many job seekers are sending outdated CVs and resumes for job openings. If you didn’t know that CVs and resumes can be outdated, please pay extra attention to this post.

Lingo Africa, the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, Nigeria, always tries to carry out research and talk to several experienced professionals to get a sense of what people should know, so, after talking to several people, we can authoritatively tell job seekers that sometimes the reason no one is calling them for job interviews is that their CVs and resumes are not updated.

Now, what makes for an outdated CV or resume as regards job openings? Outdated CVs and resumes contain information that is not relevant to the position identified. Also, a CV and resume can be outdated if the skills highlighted are no more relevant, yes, skills can become irrelevant, this is why we always urge our clients to keep updating their skills in fields that are important to them.

Take, for instance, you want to apply for a role in Office Management, your skills shouldn’t be focused on Word Processing or Bookkeeping, you should instead focus on relevant skills like Strategic Planning and Resourcefulness.

It is our recommendation that every jobseeker, and indeed every professional, should endeavor to review their CV regularly and make appropriate changes so that whenever there is an opportunity to submit the CV for an open position, s/he will submit a CV or resume that is loaded with appropriate information and updated skills.

This is very important. Even if you are currently not job hunting, look through your CV and determine if the skills and other information are updated – if they are not, please, try to update them. You really cannot tell when you may come across an opportunity that you need to send in an application for, so, do it today!

Another point, we would like to make is you should never send the same resume for different job openings. Every job opening is different and there are job requirements for each. Our recommendation is that you should build a new resume for each job application, using the information in the job description as your reference point.

This will make it easier for you and give you the highest chance of getting attention from the recruiter. For instance, there is a job opening for an Executive Assistant and you have worked four years in that capacity as well as five years as a banker.

Your resume should only show the information from your work as an Executive Assistant, not as a Banker. This is why you cannot send your full CV, but, you should build resumes specific to each job opening.

We wish you good luck with applying for job openings. Keep applying and do not lose hope in the possibility of better days to come!

Source - https://lingoafrica.com/what-kind-of-cv-resume-should-you-send-out-for-job-openings/

Lingo Africa.

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Good afternoon

You may be one of those who have experienced a setback at work due to COVID-19 and we know you need resources. At Lingo Africa, the foremost human capital development platform in Abuja, we understand and we sympathize with you. Frank told us last week how he got an email from his office Human Resources Department.

“The email arrived in my inbox during the ongoing lockdown and when I saw that it was from HR, I was reluctant to open it but, I just had to. They wrote that the company is currently undergoing a lot of changes due to COVID-19 and the ongoing lockdown is doing more harm than good, so, all employees will be paid half salaries until things go back to normal,” Frank said.

This is the scenario right now for so many employees across various sectors. Worse still, some others have been fired from their jobs and are now looking for work opportunities. Times are very hard right now for a lot of professionals. This post will help whoever needs help in navigating ways to get another job even as COVID-19 status is still active in many countries around the world.

According to Kayode Abass on LinkedIn, a few sectors are still hiring because they do essential work even in the midst of COVID-19. These sectors are Healthcare, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), IT, Logistics and Retail, e-Commerce and Tech startups, Educational Services, Marketing.

So, if you are looking for a job right now, you should focus on offering some of your professional value to companies in any of the aforementioned sectors. You can either look out for vacancies within these sectors, or you need to identify the owners of companies in any of the sectors and approach them through LinkedIn or a shared contact and tell them the value you can offer their company at this time, so, you can get hired.

If you need help applying the traditional way, here are a few tips to help your search;

Experience – How many years of relevant experience do you have? Do you have recommendations from high flyers in your chosen industry? Can you prove to a company director that your professional experience is something that his/her company will benefit from?

Employers focus so much on experience because it makes their work easier. Right now, companies are trying to stay afloat and if you have enough work experience to carry out duties for them, they will move mountains to hire you.

Keywords – If you are applying to available jobs over the internet, you need to identify the role or roles for which you want to get hired, then, you must use LinkedIn and other online tools to do a keyword search, this will help you identify the keywords that will attract headhunters to your resume.

We all know that HR people go through hundreds of resumes, so, in order to make yours stand out, you need to use keywords. What are those words that are common for the role you want?

Let’s say you need work as a Remote Marketer for an FMCG company, you need to have keywords like – marketer, marketing executive, sales, copywriting, sales management, performance management, etc, on your resume and on your LinkedIn profile to increase your chances of visibility.

This is very important if not, the chances of your visibility especially online is very slim. Keywords on your resume also help you defeat the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which is designed to screen out job candidates who do not focus on keywords.

Your Cover Letter – A lot of times, some people avoid writing cover letters or some just repeat the same information found on their resume (Yawn!) Writing a cover letter is one of the best ways to get the attention of the person who is reading through your application.

You need to use this opportunity to tell a story about your career journey, in relation to that role! This trick works most of the time because it humanizes you, it helps the HR person to understand you better, which is the purpose of a cover letter. Focus on why you want the job or how you solved a problem using your relevant skills.

Take Advantage of LinkedIn – LinkedIn is still one of the best ways to land jobs, especially from other countries. You should not just create a profile and leave it at that, you need to get involved, engage with other professionals.

Complete your profile to 100 percent, comment on other people’s posts, give advice based on your work experience, if anyone is celebrating a new promotion, or job, wish them well, also make your own posts, even if you do not get any engagement at first, continue posting. Allow the LinkedIn algorithm to find you and more people will find you too.

More relevant links found at the source - https://lingoafrica.com/you-need-these-job-search-tips-if-you-are-looking-for-opportunities/

Lingo Africa.

Good evening!

Good evening!

Good evening!