Amazing Selling Points Nigerians Omit On Their Cvs

Saw this brilliant post on Nairaland, think its good you know it.
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As the premium consultancy arm of Jarushub
continues to grow in popularity, I find myself
spending the bulk of my weekend reviewing clients'
CVs and cover letters. When working on a CV, I
always have cause to call the owner to drill more
information to give flesh to otherwise dry CVs. To
my amazement, many people miss out very critical
information that have the potential to boost their
chance in job selection process. I will be sharing
them from time to time so others can learn from
them. I am sharing three in this first part.
1, Awards: Yes, we know that in Nigeria, awards are
one naira for two. Any fool can buy one. But whether
the one you bought or the one you genuinely won,
award is a big booster to your CV. If you don't have
any award, there is no harm, but if you have any,
even if it is winning best student as a local
champion in your village primary school, please
include on your CV.
I was reviewing a CV yesterday and I noticed from
the CV that this lady must be brilliant: sound
second class upper in Geology from a good school,
grammatical error-free CV (unfortunately, only 1 out
of every 5 CVs I look at are basic error-free – a sad
indicator of the English language proficiency of our
graduates) and other pointers to her brilliance. I
picked up my phone and called her to eke out more
juicy things about her that I can use to garnish her
CV. Alas! I got to know she won award as best MBA
(Marketing) student in her class, in Unilag for that
matter. How can she leave out such booster on her
CV before? I included it in the revamped CV.
Awards may not be able to upstage other critical
information like class of degree, age (if entry level in
an age-specifying recruitment), course of study, and
experience (in experienced hire), but it could be a
tie-breaker when there are many other applicants
that qualify on the basic selection criteria. For entry
level and first five years experience, every relevant
award should be put on CV, but as you gain more
experience, you can begin to sift the irrelevant ones.
For example, I used to have on my entry level CV
many years ago that I was the 3rd best student in
my primary school and 2nd best student in my
secondary school, but I have taken those out of my
CV today when I have more weighty awards like
Best ICAN candidate in Nigeria at the Foundation
stage in 2007. I still have at least 5 awards and
prizes on my CV till today. In fact, I suspect that the
reason I got my first permanent job as an
accountant in an oil and gas company when I had
not qualified as an accountant then (I studied
economics in the university and had only passed
stage 1 in 5-stage ICAN when I got an accounting
job) was because I won award in that first stage,
which was screaming on my CV.
2, Nationality: When you are in Rome, behave like
a Roman. We may not be able to wish away this fact
in recruitment process in Nigeria, where sentiments
still play out. It is to take advantage of this psyche
that I put state of origin on CVs of clients I review.
Although state of origin should ordinarily not mean
anything except where the recruiter expressly asks
for it, putting it there voluntarily, where not
specified, I don't think you will lose anything, except
if expressly said in the advert that you should not
put it. You never can tell if the HR manager is from
your village and that, fortunately or unfortunately,
depending on whom you are speaking with, may be
a tie-breaker.
Related to this is nationality. I was asking for the
state of origin of the owner of a CV I was reviewing
this morning when he told me he had dual
nationality: Nigerian and British. Well, I think that's
a plus. If it was some inconsequential country, I
would not have put the other nationality there for
him, but because it is Britain, we all know many
Nigerians – some recruiters, interviewers inclusive –
fall for anything oyinbo. I am taking advantage of
that for him. I included it in his revamped CV. He
would have missed out such.
3, Leadership activities: Another question I ask
clients when reviewing CVs for them, if missing on
their raw CV, is, what leadership activities they held
in the past. This was missing in the CV of many
clients I worked on. Again, this may not be as
important as grade in school, age, experience, or
even awards, but truth is, some hirers look at it. A
top CEO in my network, who runs the Nigerian
business of a multinational management consulting
firm, consistently says that one important thing he
looks for in CVs is the candidate's past with respect
to extra curricular and leadership activities. Was he
just someone that did no more than moving from
class to hostel during his years in school, even if he
had a First Class?
Leadership activities like Secretary of one body,
President of one association, etc, tells this. He says
this is so because such people that led teams in the
past have persuasive skills. They have been able to
influence their peers to make them their leader.
Such people will be good for the workplace. I also
remember my interview with the Deputy CEO of one
top bank in 2006 when I just finished university. He
looked through my CV and saw the academic laurels
and all that, then asked me, "from your CV, it
doesn't appear you engaged in social and extra-
curricular activities in the university". I quickly
defended myself by pointing to where I was the
President of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), OAU
chapter, on the CV before him. This is another point
that was recurringly missing in most of the CVs I
have worked on, and surprised to learn from phone
discussion that the owners actually had.
I will be sharing more in subsequent parts of this
series.