They say all that starts well, ends well. This applies to goal-setting and achievement in our careers. However, you might plan and things work out in unexpected ways, stuff does happen, you know! This is where self-evaluation with regard to your career comes in. Ancient thinkers – think Plato, Socrates – all agree that an uninvestigated life (read career) isn’t worth living.
Most of us do set goals usually at the beginning of the year. Whether they’re achievable, not many care. The truth is you should and must care, for the key to success has long been known to be proper planning. So how you plan in order to succeed? Be SMART. Set goals that are:
Start by asking yourself some fundamental but important questions that will help you get much clearer about your goals or how to modify them to suit new realities. Ask yourself, for example, what career you are in? Are you a project manager who needs to evaluate goals quarterly? Or at the end of the month-old project? Tie your goals and their achievements, down to the details of specific objectives and tasks in a given time-frame. This way, every month will have performance indicators – did I achieve my daily, monthly plan? If yes, what factors led to my achievement and if no, what factors contributed to it? This will help you take stock of your success as you review the direction your career/professional life is headed to.
Are you feeling happy in the current job, the one you’ve been into in the past period of goal setting? Remember, having a healthy paycheck doesn’t always result in happiness and contentment in your career. Try to go through all aspects of your current job/career to ensure that there’re tangible reasons to support your feelings of happiness and contentment before you set out to review what works and what doesn’t in your situation.
Most people’s New Year resolutions feature career goals prominently. But what are these goals? Are they long-term goals? As you set out to set some goals to achieve within a given period, try to factor in unforeseen circumstances like sudden management decisions at your place of work – think downsizing. Considering all factors, are your goals achievable? If you’re planning long-term say 2 or 3 years, make room for modification. At the year end, this is perhaps the best time to dock out your goals list what hasn’t worked. Don’t rely on your feelings but rather on practical reasons that led and are likely to determine achievement of your goals.
The quarterly or annual achievements should give you a bearing concerning what you accomplished as well what you didn’t, probably because you lacked some needed skills to achieve in the area. At this time also, you will be able to know what skills, tangible or intangible, you are more needed to progress in your career. In case you learnt new things, techniques of performing your duties better, learnt new skills and new realities, it’s time to take stock of that. While still on this, look for any room for improvement in both goal setting and realization. Has there been any disconnect between aspiration and achievement? How do you bridge it?
In evaluating your career, don’t forget the maxim: look before you leap. Know where you are in relation to your plans or scheme of things. How far from achieving your dream, are you before you dare think where your career is headed to? Try to make out what could have hampered your goals in the previous goal realization period. A S.W.O.T. Analysis of you at this point is necessary.
- Strengths – what are your strengths? Your competitive advantage? Unique skills to help me achieve dream?
- Weaknesses – are they too obvious to everyone, leading to an outright disadvantage at the workplace? In my career life?
- Opportunities – am in the right job/career? Is my current employment helping me get the necessary exposure to spot opportunities; does my current job allow enough ‘thinking space’ so lead me to new opportunities?
- Threats – is what am doing currently unrelated to my career aspirations, contrary to some of my goals – short and long-term – and hence a threat to my career progress?
With this kind of self-evaluation, you’ll know if you’re in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time or not. And if not, reshape your goals and you’ll be closer to achieving what your dream is made up of.
All over the world, it seems politicians are a scheming, practical lot, or so I think. For I see them ‘flow’ with what will ensure their success at the ballot box in the next elections. They’re almost always right in predicting what they need and should do, and in which way to attain or retain power. The same applies to your career. Where do you see yourself in the next 2, 3 or say five years? In the same job? Doing the same things, same style? Like a politician, be clear on what you want – state it boldly, and want it badly! You may realize you need to refocus in your goals regarding your career in order to realize your dream. What do you change, what do you retain? Evaluate your career and you’ll not only know but also act do what needs to be done and voila! You are on the highway to career success.
Aptitude tests have been observed to be a highly accurate tool for selection of the right candidate as compared to the interview, group discussion, written tests and so on. Based on this assumption, an increasing number of organizations include this tool in their recruitment process. The aptitude tests used are specifically designed tests to measure the ability to acquire/ apply skills and/or knowledge to a specific type of job. These skills are usually identified when the vacancy is announced and the test is then engineered to identify the best fit candidate independent of their formal knowledge base. There are a wide variety of aptitude tests such as:
- Verbal – this type of testing measures critical verbal reasoning which maybe important in sales/ marketing when verbosity can motivate a consumer to accept a sale, or change from a brand to another
- Numerical – this is specifically significant in banking, insurance and related fields where numbers and reasoning with numbers make the core of the business/ job at hand
- Clerical – this tests measures the ability of the candidate to notice mistakes. The whole purpose of a clerk is to keep things smooth and accurate – hence the tests are designed to measure speed and accuracy as well as ‘the eye for it’ in identifying mistakes
- Sensory – this test is for people where coordination of color, sound and visual acuity is important – such as textiles, interior decoration, automobile industry, etc
- Spatial ability – these types of tests is generally for those who choose a career in space such as astronauts or related careers
- Mechanical ability – these tests are designed to gauge how astute and fast the candidate can interpret and solve problems related to mechanical faults; engineers are usually game for the mechanical ability tests
- Diagrammatic dexterity – this implies testing of logical reasoning using pictures and diagrams instead of text or numbers
Each of these tests are designed to test a certain skill or ability to apply that skill to the job in question by the candidate. It is extremely unlikely that one would be expected to undergo more than three-four tests – particularly relevant to the job for which they are interviewed.
Why are aptitude tests used? As mentioned above, aptitude tests are used as diagnostic or identifying tools. The score you get will tell your prospective employer whether you are compatible with the job they advertised or not, and if so to what extent you can be trainable to be a close-to-perfect employee. Since the aptitude tests are recognized as a highly accurate means to pinpoint fit of skills and ability, your score will be counted as an important component of the overall score in the selection process.
Many organizations use the aptitude tests as the first qualifying criteria so only those who pass it can proceed further into the selection machinery.
Aptitude tests are used as a cut-off technique in a selection process, and/or a tool to identify the best possible candidate for a given job.
Therefore, I will advise you to master the skills of appitude test writing.
Best of luck!!
I
f you are currently looking for work or thinking about changing jobs, it’s a good idea to do a self-assessment to determine if you are hirable.
Get Honest
When assessing your character traits, it’s important to be honest. Don’t tell yourself you are motivated when you hate going to work every day. Don’t pretend you are hard working when you are only willing make the minimum effort. Don’t say you are punctual when you are late on a regular basis.
Important Qualities
There are certain essential character traits you must have in order to be hirable. You need to be punctual and dependable, showing up to work on time when you are scheduled to be there. You should be cooperative and have good interpersonal skills with your boss, co-workers, and customers. Being enthusiastic about your job is helpful.
Depending on your job, being accurate, having good organizational and problem solving skills, along with coming up with creative ideas can be crucial. All employers will appreciate loyalty and discretion as well as maturity and a willingness to accept responsibility and additional work assignments. You can also benefit from being an innovative self starter who is confident, persistent, plans ahead, and communicates well. Employers also usually appreciate individuals who are confident, creative, and passionate about their work.
Get Feedback
To determine how you rank in these various character traits, you might look at your previous work reviews, talk to past co-workers, and ask your former bosses what they see as both your strengths and your weaknesses. Once you have this feedback, you can emphasize your strengths in job interviews and work to improve your weak areas.
Be Aware
Knowing what employers are looking for in a job interview can help you make a good impression and improve your chances of being hired. First and foremost, you need to dress neatly and professionally.
Next, you need to communicate well by answering the questions you are asked articulately. If you can show you have some knowledge about the company or organization by asking well informed questions, then you can impress the interviewer with your research and interest. Be as honest as possible when you are answering questions during the job interview since this is a very important character trait for many employers.
In addition, emphasize your work ethic and ability to learn quickly if, in fact, you do have both of these character traits. Detailing your computer skills could also be helpful since most jobs require some knowledge about technology.
If you don’t happen to have some of the qualities or skills that will make you hirable, do what you can to improve in these areas so that you can improve your chances of getting a job.
Interviewers are more and more using psychometric and aptitude testing during interviews as tools to help them decide on the right candidate. This is because it is recognized today that the best worker is that who works along the lines his natural abilities lead him rather than against them. Hence, a worker who is faced with situations that are beyond his natural abilities will, in time, perform at a lower level than those who have the required abilities. So, why take chances?
What is an aptitude test? An aptitude test is a means of measuring a person’s fit to a certain type of job requirements by assessing specifically certain skills such as verbal or numerical – as applicable to the job. The aptitude test helps the interviewer judge the level of adaptability of the candidate to the job, up and above his/her qualifications.
It is ‘a test used to predict future performance in a given activity, ‘intended to predict success in some occupation or training course’
Facts about the aptitude tests:
- Some Aptitude tests are designed to test your logical reasoning.
- The tests usually consist of multiple choice questions which have a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer
- Not known to many, you are not actually expected to finish the test – so do not get upset when you are unable to reach the end. The aptitude tests are normally measured in a relative context – either to the rest of the candidates or to the average obtained by the general cadre working in the job you are applying for
- The instructions in the beginning of the test are the most crucial part of the test – many times they are worded such that if misunderstood or understood superficially, it will take the candidate on a totally wrong tangent.
- Computing jobs have specifically designed aptitude tests which normally use ‘pseudocodes’ or other similar language.
- Aptitude tests are more and more conducted over computer.
- Aptitude tests are mostly used to identify strengths and weakness areas which can pinpoint the right fit candidate for a particular type of job
- Aptitude tests are increasingly used where skills are important in discharging certain duties (such as accuracy and numerical astuteness in banking) so as to measure the compatibility degree of the candidate
- Aptitude test are also commonly used when the employer needs to choose the right personnel for certain type of training (for which the company pays) so the effort is not wasted on the wrong candidate
- These tests are as vast as the variety of jobs that exist for filling – you have aptitude tests for verbal ability, numerical astuteness, manual dexterity, logical reasoning, abstract reasoning, speed, spatial awareness, mechanical ability, and so on
- An aptitude test is never the only tool for measurement of fit of a candidate for a job. The results of the test are always added to the overall performance of the interviewee, though many times the score obtained in the test will have a cut-off qualifying value
- Aptitude test are increasingly used as a tool for career counseling for students so they learn to choose what suits them most naturally
- These tests are also increasingly used to guide teachers in schools, colleges and even universities on the inclination of the students so the curriculum can be drawn up and guided to enhance the natural aptitude of the student
- Aptitude tests can be mastered by constant practice – though the change in score of an aptitude test does not really mean that the person has changed
The above facts will be helpful in clearing some myths about the so much talked about aptitude tests. When preparing for an inter view where you anticipate an aptitude test, it would be good if you remember these preparatory tips:
Practice: First and foremost, ‘practice makes perfection’ saying is totally apt here. The more you practice the better you will perform in aptitude tests. Concentrate not on the questions themselves but on the type of questions asked so your eyes and brain get used to the style of questioning. This is also particularly important if the upcoming test is likely to have numerical questions and you are rusty with your maths. Be sure you practice maths sufficiently to be comfortable with mental calculations (including tables, division, multiplications, etc) and at a glance judgment of graphs and tables, percentages, averages, and so on. This needs a lot of warming up – do not let it pending till the last moment.
Be attentive to details: Many candidates do horrible in their aptitude tests because they do not pay attention to the instructions given. Read or if verbal, listen carefully and do exactly as it is instructed. This is crucial.
Use the practice period to acquaint yourself to the style of the test: Many tests have a few minutes practice period. Make the best of it by practicing the examples and analyzing the logic they are trying to follow.
Be as accurate as you can: As in all tests accuracy is highly important here. The overall score has usually a very small margin for cut off and a small inaccuracy could mean your rejection.
Guess intelligently: When in doubt for the right answer, you make intelligent guesses by eliminating the obviously wrong answers and working it backwards. Do not get stuck on a question if you are not sure of the answer.
For those who would like to practice the Internet has a sea of opportunity. For your assistance the following free sites have been identified which will give you a good exposure. However, do not limit yourself only to these, but practice as much as possible.
Practice and best of luck!
Failure is an event, never a person.
~William D. Brown
Nothing seems to qualify me to pen lines on this page except failures; yes you read me right, blatant, rip roaring, humbling failures. I am the failed Journeyman.
If you are looking for a frustrated job seeker, a battered and hammered interviewee, a disenchanted office worker, a prayer warrior with special bias to career minded, job seeking mountain moving prayers and so on and so pitifully, you are reading the right lines.
But do not get me wrong, I am not here to shop for pity, I am not crying out these lines to seek for comforting hands, but something tells me if you can take my work worn, disappointment-ridden hand we could navigate this land mine infested island that leads to that Google career (if you know what I mean).
For reasons I myself do not understand I refuse to tell you exactly how many job interviews I lumbered to the past year but I can assure you the number far exceeded a standard football team but not up to a standard rugby team. So make up the numbers in your head. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I would say I am still expecting that life changing call from one of them. But while deceiving myself on one hand that maybe I would get at least one positive call, I have been doing some soul searching, some inner musings, some consultations and investigations aplenty on the other reasonable hand, as to why it seems I am now in an eternal lockdown, shackled hopelessly in the job seeking penitentiary. I have not struck gold but…
Yesterday, just this yesterday I went to… I’ll skip the name of the boutique (I’m not running any cheap advert for anybody) but it was somewhere on the island and I drained my bank account to near red by loading my shopping basket with smart suits, smart shirts, smart shoes, deodorants, perfumes… because I realized ( that was a lie) someone told me actually, my dressing and dress sense put together was so appalling only a circus or a night of a thousand laughs producer would give a job to me dressed like an emergency Charlie Chaplin.
Little wonder I always get this queer, ‘what the hell are you doing here’ look any time I step in to take my seat for an interview. I’ve got the clothes now but I’m still shopping for the dress sense. Feel free to send in help notes. Lesson: Your dressing opens its loud mouth and speaks for you before you speak for yourself. Don’t make it speak junk.
I know I talk too much, I joke too much, I feel over friendly even to strangers and that silly attitude I take to all my interviews. Even before sitting down, I am already smiling like Mr. Bean at the interview panel hoping they will like me. I remember one where I hit a friendly chord on classical music with one of the members of the interview panel and my tongue was let loose rolling out Beethoven, Wagner, Elgar, Chopin, Bach and rounding off the silly session with Handel’s messiah. The guy was impressed but the others were disgusted. They never called me back. Lesson 2: Please friends, be pleasant, be warm, but keep interview banter professional. Got it?
Prayer is good but it is one of my many failings. I fast and pray more than I read and research before my interviews. Proper Naija boy I believe too much in mouth watering miracles. But after my catalogue of failures despite many prophecies from here and there predicting a mind bending job offer coming my way, I am now wiser. Get me right, I am not saying no to prayers but also make sure you read, research and know more about the company you are gunning for even more than the HR folks. I think that is Lesson 3.
Once upon a time, I was a peacock. A well fed, just out of university, rainbow coloured peacock; proud and arrogantly naughty by nature. I will saunter into interview venues as if my great grandfather was John D. Rockefeller, my grandfather was Albert Einstein and my father owned the Burj Khalifa. I was proud; flippant and full of puerile airs. I always knew (so I thought) the right answers, but after a litany of resounding rejections I have swallowed my pride like a poodle’s vomit. I have tossed arrogance into the bin and I’m learning (note) learning respect, not just for the interviewers but also for fellow interviewees. Lesson 4: Arrogance is like stale perfume; effuses strongly, appals terribly.
Nerves, nerves, nerves. As arrogance slowly gave way, unreasonable jitters followed. Before interviews, I am always a bundle of failed nerves. Though I try to hide it behind a veneer of plastic smiles and effusive camaraderie, I am absolutely sweating inside. It became more pronounced as my list of failed interviews grew alarmingly. Now I am trying to find that middle ground between arrogance, confidence and nervousness. No be small ting! That didn’t sound like a lesson but I think it’s worth mentioning.
And please, please and please. If you are asked if you have any questions by the interviewer and you know deep within you have nothing reasonable to say, please do not just open your mouth.
I have committed so many oral suicides at interviews because of this ‘I must say something syndrome’. I remember asking why an elderly interviewer didn’t wear her ring. Was it part of company policy? The other members of the panel virtually shrank into in their chairs. I learnt later she had just gone through a terrible divorce. Do I need to tell you I didn’t get the job? Lesson 5: go back to first paragraph.
Before I begin to bore you with my catalogue of gaffes, that’s if I haven’t already, I will gladly take my leave, I hope you will pick a thing or two from my unfortunate situations (if anything is worth picking anyway). Crucify me in you mind if you like at least I’m a shade better than that bloke (I won’t mention his name) who smelt both armpits and made a face as he entered the interview room or my friend’s girlfriend whose phone rang as she was answering a question on things she dislikes. The ring tone caught her saying, “I dislike disturbances”, her ring tone- You bad, you want it, you bad, you know you want it cos you bad… Do not laugh ‘cos its not funny, she lost the job because of that. So, see you next time as we run again through my many failures on this my rugged, ragged journey to that job!
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~Thomas Edison
Photo Credit: istockphoto
Bode Asiyanbi, an award winning writer works with a leading financial institution in Nigeria.
Joshua Persky
Only the paranoid will survive
-Andrew S. Groove
Joshua Persky, 48, then an out-of-job investment banker caught the eye of the media in 2008 for not being unemployed but for resorting to a creative yet old-fashioned method in his quest for a job.
Persky, a father of five kids (rather large for a New Yorker) quickly became tired of the convention methods of e-mailing resumes and waiting for the headhunter’s call that was nowhere in sight. Like a man already down with nothing else to fear, he elected to toe the unorthodox line way of hawking (yes, hawking) himself on a busy New York street for weeks on end to the dismay of passers-by. He was no bum. Persky, an M.I.T. graduate was adept in the arcane details of financial valuation. He worked in Houlihan Lokey, a boutique investment bank before he was laid off in 2007 in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
With a sandwich board (read cardboard in Nigerian parlance) on which was scrawled: “Experienced M.I.T. graduate for hire” hanging on his best suit and stacks of his resume, he showed up on Park Arena in New York handing out his resume to passers by. Yeah, he didn’t forget-so I am quick to add-his name and contact information on the cardboard- outside- the-box thinking at its vintage best.
The reaction? At once predictable and inexplicable. He made primetime TV-FOX and MSNBC-and wait for this, he graced the front-page of a magazine in far away Greece. With fans mails from as far as South Korea, he went (I succumb to the internet speak) viral. He was interviewed and featured in major newspapers in America, was on a radio program in Bogota, Columbia and he soon became a fitting symbol of the mass layoffs that characterized the global financial crisis. Did his stunt (for want of a better word) pay off? Yes and No.
While it got him media attention, countless interviews and speaking engagements, it provided the inspiration to commence a blog – chronicling his out-of-job experience and thought-leadership on business valuation-that was soon to become the major attraction for a headhunter who subsequently recommended him to his current employer, Weiser LLP an accounting firm. But for some months after his ‘self-marketing’ joker, there was still no job was in sight.
Persky has become a by-word for innovative job search and not a few folks have drawn inspiration from him to hawk themselves in the open after they got the boot. The enduring morale of the Persky narrative is no lost on me. It has provided mulling fodder during flash moment of introspection. It is an inspiring tale of courage, perseverance and optimism. Even when interviews that followed his flooding New York street with his resumes didn’t translate into job, he had a good dose of smarts to piggyback on his hard-earned 15 minutes of fame. The blog he subsequently started fetched him a good following, ultimately standing him in good stead to land a plum job.The novelty of Persky’s job hunt continues to intrigue. He has gone ahead to become a speaker and he currently counsels the unemployed.
I have tried in vain to situate his experience in the Nigerian context. The possibility of a nattily suited young man with a dangling cardboard bearing his qualifications to boot handing out his resume, stalking denizens of our Broad street and Ajose Adeogun is one sight that I cannot fathom. Like, Persky, I am sure the individual would be the object of derision and the pity of passers-by. Perhaps, he would, in place of an invite for a job chat, get a plethora of invitations to church programmes where the anointing of the general overseer would break the yoke of joblessness in his life. Perhaps the media would consider an interview with him to fill their pages especially on days when there is a dearth of newsworthy materials. Perhaps not.
Nonetheless, I am sure that exploring the Perskian (my invention) approach is worth the try. It represents for me a break with traditional approach to job hunting that seems to be favoured by job seekers these days.
The abiding morale: in a sea of heads, you are lost unless you can break out of the mould. Follow Persky’s lead and do something daring. It will sure be worthwhile.
Eyinade Adedotun, blogs at http://tinwatinwa.blogspot.com/
“Morning shows the day”
- African Proverb
While the sages of Africa are right when they observed that the morning is a portent for what the day holds, it does not always hold true for an analyst, at least one who has thrown his/her lot with a big four professional services firm. Perhaps the day’s tasks could have been drawn up by the backlog of unattended tasks of the previous day. Even at that you still aren’t sure what to expect as the shape of the day, as they say, lies in the laps of the gods.
Yeah, it had been sketched out the previous day when you left the office at around 10pm, yes, 10pm and you still had a number of deliverables yet unattended to.
Deliverables! That’s enough thought to cloud your already addled brain as you commute to work in the morning. If you are like me and you commute to work by public transport, you have enough to brood over amidst the inane chatter of other passengers: logistics to be made for the team, research to be done, slides to be prepared, excel spreadsheet to be populated, interviews with clients to be confirmed, interview notes to be typed ad nauseam.
And then you saunter into the pool or into your workstation in your client’s office (if you are on an engagement) primed for the day’s task. While you are setting up your system, you are asked by your team leader for the update on research he requested some minutes before he left you to stew in your juice the previous night. You remember the bile that welled up within, the naked revulsion, the sickening thought that you would have to research alone into the night and make available facts that would only help in clarifying a few grey areas. Nothing more! He left you demanding feedback the next day and of course, you knew it would be an evaluation issue if you didn’t deliver.
I am still on it, you tell him. I scoured the internet but my research was stalled when the security guard told me he needed to shut down and leave for home. You are not sure if your explanation sits down well with him. You wish you didn’t care but you do. And you hate to think that you have to start another day on another fruitless search. But you have to deliver.
Other senior members start to demand for updates on assigned tasks and they are beginning to drive you nuts. You must maintain calm and resilience, as it one of your goals on which you would be evaluated at the end of the engagement, at the end of the financial year and you can’t afford to be rated anything less than a SP-sound performance, the shade notwithstanding.
You are already adept at multitasking. You started honing that skill three months into your stint in the firm. Your phone beeps and then a senior associate calls to enquire about the whereabouts of an engagement file. The less-than-pleasant experience you had on her watch floods back to you as you try to visualize the file cabinet where you had angrily flung the files after three long days of painstaking filing. You can hear her hand rummaging through the cabinet now. She says there have been some amendments to the final deliverable and that she would have you drop by the office en route home to effect the corrections, print out the document and file the revised copy. The partner must see it the next day and she is off to her client site.
It is 11am already and you are off with a senior associate to take down note for an interview with a client. This client senior manager is particularly garrulous, always veering off the tangent. And gosh, you have to capture his disjointed response in words. If you had your way you would have him sacked not ‘counselled out’ to use the dreaded parlance of the firm. The interview stretches into two hours and by the time you are done, hunger beckons. You have lunch at the client office amidst the chatter of the client staff dining in the room. You loath the idle prattle that fills the room and wish you could swap places with them.
You do all the work and they earn fatter paychecks than you do. That sickens you. Their work is a sinecure for the most part and they badger you every so often asking to know if you are paid overtime for the long hours you spend post COB.
You settle down to work after lunch, willing yourself not to open your Yahoo mail and Facebook as you know your myriad friends doing less demanding jobs are waiting to chat you up. You stare blankly into your system for close to thirty minutes and you were jolted back into reality by the arrival of the manager. He has come around to review the team’s work.
Time check 5pm.
It’s close of business but work has just started.
Adedotun Eyinade, an Analyst at a Big Four Audit firm, blogs at http://tinwatinwa.blogspot.com/
The Cross Road Within
“Let each man pass his days in that where his skill is greatest” – Propertius (50BC)
I have taken two major career decisions that have unsurprisingly met the vehement disapproval and skepticism of a vast number of friends, colleagues, associates and relatives. Firstly in June 2007 when I left active medical practice and secondly in November 2009, when I formally ended my 18 months romance with UBA Plc.
Back to the first incident in 2007. Some people took it so personal that they stopped taking my calls. Others labeled me as confused, delirious, opinionated, idealistic, unrealistic and impatient. I was told that, I was a young man (sic) in a hurry to arrive at a destination I was not sure of.
Peeps, what was my offence? It was simply that I was finally going to follow my passion for management consulting. A friend I called for career advice was kind enough to inform me that, if I had not attended any training course from reputable capacity building institutions like Lagos Business School, there was no way that any right thinking management consulting firm would take such risk with a green horn who had nothing to offer but ‘passion and drive’. Well, thank goodness they were dead wrong.
But I must admit that it was tough to make that call and walk away from my ward coat, stethoscope, patients and colleagues. A part of me was as scared as passengers on a plane that was in imminent danger of crashing. Was I sure of what I was doing? What if I failed? How would I face all who had warned me? What if they are right? Did I know what I really wanted to do? Was this a disaster waiting to happen? Was it a misadventure of titanic proportions? Was I moving too fast…too soon…too much…too far? As it were, my back was on the wall. I was at a cross road.
Images from my work as a medical doctor flashed through my mind – the excitement of taking the delivery of babies, attending to trauma cases in the accident and emergency wards (A & E), carrying out dare devil life saving surgeries at night using kerosine and rechargeable lamps in an obscure village that had no electricity and poor gsm signal. I thought of the many medical missions I had led. Could I really give up clinical medicine with my well known love for knowledge sharing sessions and research into best clinical practices? Would my family understand and support me in a society that unashamedly worships ‘professional courses?
During this state of decision paralysis, I gave myself to writing…my vision, life and career objectives and goals. I wanted especially to understand my ‘job-life analysis’ – what were my work habits, preferred working style, weaknesses and strengths on the job, handling of responsibilities, nature of relationship with my managers, peers and subordinates? These months long soul searching exercise was a real blessing. I became acutely aware of who I was, what I was, where I wanted to be over the coming years, what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, who I wanted to work, relate and align with, what I stood for and why I was at that cross road at such a time in my life. I was at my “moment of truth”. The “make or break point”.
At the end, I made the call. Why subject my patients to less than 100% of my commitment? I kept dreading the thought of waking up at the age of 45, wondering what I did with my life. My mind was made up. I would still be a doctor, but this time a business doctor. With all the upheavals in businesses, meltdowns, downsizing and corporate governance, regulatory and risk issues, businesses sure needed the touch of a doctor…one like me who would define impossibilities and then ignore them. One who knew how ignorant he was, but nevertheless never gave up trying relentlessly to find pertinent answers to begging questions. I would work to earn my place, position and cement my reputation no matter what. Excellence is after all work in progress.
It did not matter that I did not have ‘formal management training. I compensated for this with my voracious appetite for knowledge nurtured over 20 years earlier. I have taken my stand…made my plans A-Z, put all my career eggs in one basket, blown up the bridges of doubt and failure behind me. I would focus on building my centres of excellence and concentrate on my circle of influence and not my circle of concern.
My case however is not peculiar. Today, there are a quite a number of people that are at cross roads in their careers. From the unemployed or underemployed to those fed up with jobs they would rather not be in…there are real life examples of people going through unhappy times at work. The recent downsizing exercises carried out by banks in Nigeria have thrown thousands more into the already over stretched labour market. Reverse brain drain is adding up numbers exponentially.
It’s a quagmire. Today’s career challenges call for one to be a step ahead of the employer. All that is happening is instructive of the fact that, “there is no future in any job. The future only belongs to the man who holds the job”. Do you have a future outside the job you currently do. If your employer suddenly told you that your skills were surplus to requirements what would you do? Are you prepared in 2010? Do you see trends before they happen? It’s time to sharpen our skills in career forecasting.
Phew! I have to go earn some money to pay my bills.
Part 2 of this article would be up within the week. keep a date with me.
Are you at a cross road in your career? Have you had a similar experience that you would like to share? Your comments are most welcome.
Ajah, Lagos – January 1, 2010 – Jobberman today announced that it hired ‘Gbenga Sesan, the renowned ICT thought leader, social entrepreneur, and author.
“’Gbenga Sesan is clearly one of the most influential leaders in the technology industry in Nigeria”, said Ayodeji Adewunmi, Co-Founder, Jobberman. “He is a leading light and we are honoured to have him join our growing team”.
‘Gbenga will continue his leadership in the ICT industry, web space in particular and help Jobberman build its evangelism program where he will promote the brand to customers (users), industry experts and technologists within and outside Nigeria. This will provide the company an opportunity to speak directly with users on a daily basis about the capabilities they would like to see in our products.
‘Gbenga is Nigeria’s first Information Technology Youth Ambassador and has spoken to over 400 unique audiences in 26 countries on the use of ICTs for Development. ‘Gbenga, an Ashoka Fellow, Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow and Our Common Future Fellow, is a multiple award winner who has been profiled as one of the 35 Icons of ICT in Nigeria. The alumnus of OAU, Oxford, Stanford and Havard was the Vice Chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s African Technical Advisory Committee and is now a member of the United Nations Committee of eLeaders for Youth and ICT.
In its 4 months since launch, Jobberman has made some key progress in making the job search experience easier and employment services more democratic in Nigeria, and is one of the most trafficked websites in Nigeria.
About Jobberman
Jobberman is the most intuitive job search engine in Nigeria. Jobberman is a young, privately funded startup with an experienced team working on defining, challenging and trend-setting products and services for the human resources industry in Nigeria. For more information visit http://www.jobberman.com
Media Contact
Olalekan Olude
+234.805.052.5675
lekan@jobberman.com
Jobs, Vacancies and Careers in Nigeria
It’s 1:31 am, Thursday and remarkably the last day of 2000+9. I’m relishing the blessings of a great year and looking into the future.
What a year?! Unfortunately (and maybe fortunately – I think Life is all we make of it) towards its tail, it presented with a plethora of lay-offs which climaxed the “banking mess” . But wait a minute, lay-offs in Nigeria!
As we open a new chapter of our lives and enter into the new year, we can resolve to land that dream job. With the post-banking mess that have left thousands unemployed, why not make it a CHOICE to find a job you truly love? If you’re currently employed, you can resolve to move up in your career, or take on new projects to continue challenging yourself.
In our quest to help you make 2010 a successful career year, I will be accepting 20 CVs (on a first-come-first-serve basis) for a free appraisal on or before Midnight of Friday, 15th of January 2010. All CVs will be returned by Saturday, 30th of January 2010. Send them directly to me: deji (at)jobberman (dot)com.
Passion, commitment, transparency, putting client’s interest first are the values we stay true to at Jobberman
Things to expect in 2010:
- Improved User experience
- More features for job-seekers & employers/recruiters
- A more dynamic Jobberman
Let’s leave it at that! Quite modest.
Wishing you well on the Morning of December 31st. I will love to hear from you…
