The Nigerian Labour Market The Nigerian labour market is a highly competitive environment. For example, scientific and engineering sectors are rapidly growing, and thus, they require highly trained personnel inundating the recruitment market. However, local companies welcome employees with experience overseas, paying attention on training and knowledge, gained during studying at universities. Such an approach results in returning of more than 2000 Nigerians every year to seek a job inside their country. The key sectors of Nigerian labour market include gas and oil, energy, hospitality, building and construction, telecommunication systems. Nevertheless, the finance sphere is particularly competitive. Besides job opportunities in different state-owned organisations, there are a lot of international companies in Nigeria (e.g., Shell, PWC, KPMG, Chevron, Texaco, Schlumberger, Hewlett-Packard, Deloitte, Nokia Siemens and etc.). However, an employement process in such companies is much more complicated than in Nigeria, this process is likely to the UK one, which requires really the best candidates with corresponding experience and enough knowledge to work for overseas company. Inspite of such a strict admission process, most of the Nigerian companies tends to be more tolerant with potential employees. Such companies promote an idea that every candidate can became the ideal candidate, but he/she needs only experience and knowledge, which he/she can gain while working at Nigerian company. Nevertheless, companies with such a positive approach to employement do not provide newcomers with competitive salary and good working conditions, which forces personnel to move to another company or even country. Nowadays, most of Nigerian employers look for graduates with not only excellent technical skills, but they require presence of problem solving skills, critical thinking, teambuilding and interpersonal skills. In addition, candidates are required to demonstrate self–discipline, integrity, good organisational and communication, ability to transfer ideas into actions. In some labour spheres, such as engineering, proper candidates need to prove their practical experience, because not every employer wants to invest time and money into training a specialist. Nigeria is hierarchical society and its business culture completely differs from the other countries, which make Nigarian labour market simultaneously interesting and unpredictable for foreign jobseekers and people, who have returned from another countries. Tips for successfull candidates: Gain relevant experience and develop skills employers are looking for. Learn everything about your potential employer, show deep knowledge of the company during the interview, it will help you to demonstrate real interest and commitment. Compare salary in working conditions in the company you apply with another local companies. Utilise social networking sites such as Linkedin to develop your professional network, it will help HR managers of different companies to find you among the other candidates. Look for the opportunities across the whole country, not just in Abuja or Lagos.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:01:29 +0000