Work and Other Things (Series 1)

Job Hunting in Naija (Nigeria) has to be the singular most frustrating act on this earth. 

Suffice it to say that dating is a less frustrating act. Dating in #Atlanta is even less frustrating. You know the men that will frustrate you so with experience you learn to avoid those men. 

But Job hunting in Nigeria - an analysis...

- you get shafted (ignored) by local recruiters and international recruiters alike (that you assume should know better, should act like they got some sense). No one returns emails, or even shortlists you for jobs that you are obviously tailor-made for. They ignore you because they don't have any valid excuse for rejecting you. 

-  multinational companies only hire Nigerians with foreign degrees. This singular act to me is a blow to being situated in an African country. If you're not going to take the local education for what it is then WTF are you doing in my country, eating up my resources and not employing my local content having no confidence in my local education in Nigeria. It's obvious you assume that our universities have no credibility. And this hurts more because this same company located in the western world considered me with my Nigerian degree on my resume, but in Nigeria, they consider that everyone here is local so they have choices, with these choices, they're gonna pick and choose and select the candidates they want to immediately assume into management and middle management with or without any local experience under their belt. 

- But for me, they insist on local experience. This one is another ridiculous aspect of the job hunting in Nigeria. How great is the work experience in Nigeria that you should insist that a candidate is subjected to it? How ethical are the Nigerian workers? How professional are they? For lawyers, how many laws are enforced? They randomly create laws for everything, there's a CBN circular and petroleum bill being issued every other month. Once they are issued, the government inserts regulatory bodies to govern these laws and that is it. Regulatory enforcement is absent. Why even create the laws in the first place? Practice of law in this country is not essentially unique or exceptional that I feel as if I missed out on it. What did I miss out? Assuming a position in a multinational where I would have risen through the ranks and become like Regional West Africa legal manager by now. That's what I missed out on and it sucks that with all the international transactional experience I have under my belt I cannot transform that into a role with a multinational - once again the same multinational that considered me in the States. 

- Based on this I assumed things would be easier here. If you get interviewed by Nike (to name drop one of my interviewees) in the States, you expect that if Nike moves into Nigeria, you would ordinarily get interviewed by Nike here, as one of their regional lawyers. Not necessarily and so far I have not been interviewed or even shortlisted by one multinational company here in Nigeria. That reality just saddens me. Makes this job search this singular most frustrating act I've endured in a long time. 

And after working in a multinational company in the States, I am really not made for a local company. That sounds boujee I know but I just don't have the stuff for it, the patience, the forbearance, the tolerance everything. It takes a lot. 

I wonder if there happens to be any returnee going through this same shit - EVER! I've seen all of them settled in nicely in their multinational. Not sure what is going on with mine. But then again, I have no "in" to these companies and of course, I don't have any Ivy League degrees. 

At this point, I'm just done. I have no faith in the system, in mankind, in 2nd chances, in opportunities, in Nigeria, in anything. I am simply done. Hoping I can wither away quietly from a broken heart.

It says a lot about a country if their President has been outside the country for over 100 days this year, it means he is done too.