Majority of available job seekers are somewhat lazy and unemployable. I say this because a huge number of job seekers I saw have done little or nothing about their personal development.

Recently I had to sit in the board room all day to conduct interviews for about 50 people for just four available job vacancies. First, countless amounts of people applied (typical Nigerian situation) for these jobs and we had a consultant shortlist to about 50 people. In the spirit of the moment I’ll like to say I’m recruiting for the company’s #OgaAtTheTop.

The day started with some candidates coming in so early for the interview. I would have been impressed if that much people came in hours early for my #EDCAbuja event where we teach them about business and stuffs like that but considering the fact that they were seeking a job, it didn’t quite impress me that much.

Then we started. First on an annoying note, I saw some people dressed inappropriately for the occasion. Well, maybe for a lack of choice (hopefully the job should afford them a salary that can change that).

Then I met some really impressive people who unfortunately didn’t really know how to express themselves. For those I tried to ease the tension in the room and make them laugh a little. But it’s not all bad. I met some great guys/ladies too, who had rich experiences, great passion and adequate skills for the job. I also found some really passionate enthusiasts who haven’t gotten that much experience but you can see through them that they would “kill” to do this.

By 12.30pm I had seen enough. A lot of experience, a lot of passion, a few people who came to the wrong place (confused about which company they’ve come to) and of course a lot of stupidity and foolishness.

 

In all I saw a few things;

– 90% or more of our people are only interested for the job because of the money, which I find appalling. I personally think having money as a chief motivator is an indicator of the fact that you’re a shallow person. So, if you walk into an interview boardroom and I sense that all you want is money, I throw you out. Immediately.

– Majority of available job seekers are somewhat lazy and unemployable. I say this because a huge number of job seekers I saw have done little or nothing about their personal development. Most of them haven’t even given some time to volunteering for organisations. People complain a lot of no experience, I find that funny. Even though I’ve never thought about working for anyone, I remember at some point in my life I packed my bags, went to Abuja from Lagos to work for free for a 5-star international organisation just to get some corporate experience so I could learn to run my business better. Truthfully, now that I live in both Lagos and Abuja, most of what I do  in both cities are an offshoot from that experience.

– We also have a lot of great people who leave where they work for somewhere else because business leaders sometimes don’t setup great company structure and don’t know how to manage their employees. I met a few great people in the boardroom whom I deduced want to leave where they are because they had bosses who were either terrible bosses or bosses who didn’t put in proper structure. Some because the boss just didn’t say “Thank you” and hence there were no clear indications of who handles what jobs which caused a lot of interpersonal rift.

– Lastly I saw people who made me ask myself, “Why are you here?” To me this category of people didn’t need a job, any job. They are driven, don’t do things primarily for the money, have great personal initiatives going on for them, love what they do (and what they want to do for us). So I ask, “Why are they here?” Perhaps they lack one thing entrepreneurs need, guts. The courage to get out and ‘Just do it’.

For those people, even though I might have to recommend some of them for the job, I feel I will be doing them a great disservice if I helped put them into a job that denies them the opportunity to really reach their full potential.

In all, it was a great experience. I learnt a lot and also tried as much as I could to teach a lot, particularly to people I felt didn’t have a shot at getting the job.

So at the end of the day we laughed with and at (this isn’t too cool) some of our participants, felt the energy from some of them while also feeking some of them draining the energy from us. But in all I had fun. I only hope all the participants could say the same.

Let’s hope the #OgaAtTheTop accepts my recommendation of ideal candidates for employment.

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Ezekiel Solesi endeavours to simplify issues so for anyone to understand and make informed and deliberate decisions about their future. He blogs at www.limbsimple.com and tweets from @limbsimple.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.