Can’t Find a Job? You’re Searching Wrong!
I understand what it means to spend days or hours tailoring your résumé, writing a good cover letter, and sending out applications to jobs you see on job boards like Indeed, Jobberman, and so on, only to get rejection emails or no response at all. It can be pretty frustrating.
Imagine a company you applied to, did an interview with, and you’re hopeful. Then, you hear they hired someone who didn’t apply at all.
How?
Sunday how?
That’s because the final hiring decision was not based on what’s listed on job sites. This feels unfair, but it’s the harsh reality, especially in Nigeria. Most jobs are posted just for formality, and many jobs are not posted at all.
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How, then, can you get these hidden jobs with good pay? Someone in my circle told me how he got an N800,000 job from a casual group chat conversation on WhatsApp. Yes, you heard that right — WhatsApp, of all places. There’s nothing like interview marathons. He didn’t interact with the applicant tracking system (ATS). He didn’t have to compete with 500+ other candidates who did “Easy Apply” on LinkedIn or anything like that.
He only sent his CV to the guy, who’s a current employee of that company, who put in a word for him. And that’s it.
The next thing he got was a call from HR, who said he was a perfect fit and invited him to come for a discussion if interested.
My guy was like, “If interested bawo!”.
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Of course, he’s super interested!
That’s when I realized something’s no one tells you about job hunting!
- The best jobs don’t always go to the best applicants in most companies. They often go to the most connected people.
- Before hiring managers dig through heaps of résumés, they look within the company and their personal network first. I once worked at an organization that has never posted a job vacancy in its over 10 years of operations. How, then, do they recruit? Referrals.
- So, your personal network is a form of résumé. People you relate with have CVs for you. The power of them recommending you for a job outweighs your CV, cover letter, and interview combined because you ride on their KLT. That is, the company or recruiter KNOWs, LIKEs, and TRUSTs them. This will smooth things for you. In short, in many cases, the cumbersome hiring process gets skipped, and you go straight to getting an offer.
So here’s my question for you.
Are you networking strategically, or just randomly hoping for the best?
You might even have a great network already, yet you are struggling to get a job. In that case, my question for you is,
Are they aware you’re currently job hunting?
If yes, do they have an idea of the specific kinds of jobs you seek?
I have had guys reach out to me about needing a job without sending me their CV until I ask. You need to unsolicitedly supply such people with details such as your current salary, the pay range you’re considering, work mode, and all that.
That’s it! I hope you find this content of mine valuable. CLAP to show appreciation. Follow me and subscribe to my channel for more insights like this.
