News

An Open Letter To Nigerian Recruiters

Published

7 years ago

November 5, 2016

edujandon🏅

An angry Nigeria job seekers wrote this…… Read below….

3 Jobs/Vacancies Drive,

Off Recruitment Portal,

Recruits Ville,

Nigeria.

4th November, 2016.

Dear Nigerian Recruiters,

Hello. I choose to start with Hello because it seems that’s one language you all have in common. Hello! Heck! That greeting upsets me. More upsetting is the pact you all entered to infuriate me. Yea, like you by this time have known, this is no love letter. At the end of the letter, I’ll leave you to decide what to call it based on what you’ll make of it.

Last year, one of you took to the national dailies to advertise a major vacancy. You called it… what’s that headline again? “Massive Nationwide Graduate Trainee Recruitment” Exactly! That’s it. In your exact words and the opening sentence read thus, ‘our client is a financial services company…’. Your client? I’m going to get to that. I don’t want to jump the gun yet. Back to the advert, you called the recruitment

massive , giving applicants hope albeit false, that at least 200-250 out of the over 5000 eligible will get in. I, like other thousands, dusted my CV and applied.

Your portal was supposed to be open for two weeks but you shut it down after 5 days with claims that the server was down when the truth is that you intentionally ended it so as to control the number of applications you’ll receive. Do I hold it against you? I don’t.

You lie! I do! I hold it against you! Why will you even do that? Are you the client or are you now the financial services company? Why don’t you leave the site alone and give everyone interested equal opportunity to sit for an aptitude test? Anyway, that’s not the issue now. I just feel I need to ask you some ‘whys’ before I go on. (Let me know when you have an answer, even though I know what it is you will reply. You all are totally predictable!)

Okay, so I applied. Lucky me! Like a rat on a race to get the cheese, I won! But no victory to record yet. Weeks after the deadline for the application, I received a mail from you inviting me to prepare for an online test. Online? On my money! In this Nigeria! You forget the peculiarities of our beloved country when you copy things from other countries. You just copy! Like a cat, you copy! In those days, after tests and interviews, applicants were given transport fare to go back home and thanked greatly for coming. Late Chinua Achebe had this to say that after graduation, his employer offered to arrange an interview with him at his convenience. But not today. Not with all these recruiters. They’d rather organize test for a prospective employee without factoring our epileptic power condition, poor internet access, unavailability of personal computers and so on. This, is still by the way.

So last year I was 26, all thanks to ASUU strikes and delay from my school to compile my results on time for mobilization, last year I wrote the test and within 48 hours was notified of my success. Victory at last? Nay! Not with Nigerian recruiters, the process is only just beginning. Month 1, no word. Month 2, no update. Month 3, no information. Month 6, no mail. Sent them a mail and then Month 9, no reply. Month 12! It’s my birthday!!! Hurray! I’m 27!

You expect me to be happy right? But why should I? My application is pending. Even though I do not know the company I’m preparing to work for, I have no doubts about them being a leading provider of financial services in Nigeria. What will it cost these recruiters to fast track the process? If a company is not ready for MASSIVE recruitment, why announce it? Oh! it’s the new trend! 30,000 graduates applied for 200 entry level slots in XYZ company. Statistics huh? That’s what they need it for? From there we’ll get a press release and you’ll hear something of this sort,

‘ 30,000 qualified graduates applied for only 200 vacant positions. 3,000 of which are first class and below 23 years of age. 2500 out of the whole are graduates from foreign universities. ‘

This must really be a thriller. You do this thinking you’re doing me but I laugh at you like I’ve gone bananas. For your information, this joke is on you!

Now I’m 27 but it doesn’t end there. After one full year! I get a text from you Mr/Ms. Recruiter on my phone at 5:30 pm inviting me for an interview at 8 am the following day. How professional! No apologies whatsoever. In the text, you instruct me to come with an ‘updated’ CV. I hope you realize updated means my age will have gone up and I most likely will have a job doing (no matter how small) I’ve got sense you know?

8 am at your office with my updated CV and you’re not there. You show up at 10 am as fresh prince of Bel-Air concerned and announce that the interview will commence immediately. I wait another 30 minutes before you invite me in. As the interview begins, you realize I’m good for something and there’s pressure on your company to produce 50 marketers for a client, you begin smooth talking me into taking up the job. For how much? Half the amount the client is paying per head!

That’s 50%

Wait! Do you see any similarity between you and a human trafficker? Or you want me to point out the similarities? Classic case of Monkey dey work baboo dey chop!

‘What about the financial services company’, I ask.

‘Sorry’, you say, ‘you are above the age limit’.

On this present offer, you attach a clause like a village headmaster. ‘You must remain with us as a marketer for at least one year…!’. Is that so? 1 year of trekking under hot sun. 1 year of refusing/rejecting better offers. 1 year of being stuck on stupid!

Now I ask you, is that how your counterparts in other countries recruit? Or you feel you can wake up 5 years down the line, dig up my number from your database and text me to come and be a feces evacuator?

You better get updated yourselves!

#NuffSaid!

Sincerely Yours,

A Nigerian Applicant.