The process to getting a job is usually one filled with both uphills and downsides. From interviews, callbacks and the sting of rejection, it is not easy to find a job.
For our latest listicle, Urban Woman Magazine asked some women to share how they got their first ever job.
Read their responses below.
Jewel
My first ever “corporate job” was in a fashion house/school as a fashion intern. I resumed immediately after I had completed my NYSC, and this is because I wanted to pursue a career in the fashion industry after university. I spent about 5 years in the industry.
From being a fashion intern I grew and held several managerial positions until I became the Creative Director II of the company.
The company has moved to the UK and is doing so well there as a government recognised fashion school and I still have a very good relationship with my boss. She remains my mentor in the fashion industry.
Spectra
So my first job was an internship during my third year in university. We have this SIWES training that happens in the University of Lagos.
I told someone that was in my hostel that I was looking for a firm to intern in so she referred me to someone that she knows. He let me know about the firm he did his training at. I put my work together in a flashdrive and I went to the office during the week to let them know that I was interested in interning at their firm.
They initially told me that there was no space so I took my properties and I headed out. On my way, I let the guy that told me about the firm know that I had left the office and what they told me. He was like: “No, you have to come back, that’s not how it’s done. You have to let them know that you are serious and all that.”
He told me to wait for him at the bus stop and we would go back to the firm together. I did that and when we got there he introduced me as his sister and that’s how I got my first job as an intern.
MA
My first 9-5 job was after NYSC. I had taken ITIL foundation classes for a whole month and the teacher recommended me for the role.
Honestly, I hated every month of the job because of the toxicity but I made sure I learnt as much as I could.
It has shaped my learning ability and I can’t wait to actually find myself in a career that I’ll love.
Anjola Adeshipe
I took a course and then tweaked my resume. The industry was Finance. The application process was pretty straightforward but the job market was not encouraging at the time.
I applied through a staffing agency and they placed me with the company where I later got converted to a permanent employee.
I didn’t know anyone and it was a cold pitch. I went through 2 rounds of interviews then I got hired.
I took an accounting course, a very entry level course too.
SE
Job fairs and LOTS of active applications.
I am a 3D animator and motion designer. I do branding as well; visual branding.
To expand more on how I got my very first job which is actually the job I’m in right now, I would say that it was all about job fairs and lots of active applications.
The industry is animation and is very much an upcoming industry in the country. So I would say that it’s not surprising that not many women pursue this path. However, even though not many women pursue this path, the women that do pursue it realistically have a bit more of a challenge. Because it is a very time consuming field and any woman in this country knows that time is almost never on a woman’s hand because she has to attend to her usual family expectations and all of that.
As for what the application process was like, I enrolled in a scholarship program that already had advantages for women and people living with disabilities. So that scholarship program is the reason I was even able to get the connections needed. When they said there was a program like this, it was the women in the program that were actively doing their best to ensure that women were not left behind in things like this.
It’s a Lagos state program and is open to everybody but even then you still needed to know someone to get in ironically. Programs like mine that already had their own cohorts and trainings and all of that were letting in their people based on the fact that they were former graduates or active students in the program.
I did pitch myself to the founder and that was how I got the job immediately and on the spot. The irony is that there was not actually room for me. They were actively recruiting people for a role that I was not a 100% in the capacity for.
I do 3D and they were recruiting for a 2D animator. So even though it was a very small gap of what they needed versus what I had, I did not make that cut but my pitch was impressive enough for them to say you know what, we want you to work with us by all means.
So they found a way to let me into the team by giving me a role that I could act in capacity of. That’s basically it.
All names have been changed to protect identities
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.