Job hunting in Nigeria can be a stressful experience and every young professional in Nigeria definitely has a thing or two to say about it.

With the unemployment rate skyrocketing in our beloved country, finding a job can be one of the hardest challenges a young adult has to go through. There's the pressure to measure up to your peers, societal pressures, and even pressure from social media that keeps getting "werser."

Now, how do you, as a young graduate, survive in a country like this? You're fresh out of college, a greenhorn basically. You've never worked a day in your life, and yet, the job requirements you keep coming across are outrageous and downright unfair. Every company willing to pay you good money requires you to be experienced first. 

This begs the question: How can you gain experience if you're not even given the opportunity to work? You cannot get a job with no experience, and you cannot get experience without a job. Insane. 

This may not be the reality for everyone though. While it was difficult for some, for others, the path to employment was graceful. And because everyone has a story to tell, we interviewed five young Nigerians who narrated their experiences in this highly competitive job market. Sharing the highs and the lows they encountered in their search for a job, here's what they had to say:

Sola

I felt prepared for the hunt, to be honest. I studied HR, and I believed that HR is in high demand. I thought I would easily get a good job. I didn't even rush to search for a job. I started job hunting after my service when I had the time to search but age became a barrier at some point. Some companies would only consider candidates who were 25 and above, and I'm not 25 yet. 

Experience was also a major challenge. I just finished my service, and these employers expect me to have two years of automatic experience. But how can I gain experience if I don't get a job first? The requirement for four years or more of experience always gets to me because, seriously, how old am I? (laughs) I haven't had any significant experience because I haven't landed a job yet (laughs). All I see is "I'll get back to you," and there is no feedback. 

It's frustrating, especially considering the fact that I wasted money on transportation for interviews and all that.

Thuke

Well, during my IT, I realised that I wasn't prepared for the job market at all, and job hunting was the worst. Rejection emails were coming left, right, and center. Sometimes, it could be discouraging, but apparently, even graduate trainee roles required some level of experience. There were times when I made it to the first interview stage and never heard from them again. But as time went by, I had to keep developing myself and keep applying.

A particularly bad experience that comes to mind was a job I actually managed to secure. The recruitment process lasted for about three months and included a technical assessment that I had to seriously prepare for. I went through various interviews and was called up for medical examinations. I was so happy because I thought that after the medicals, I would surely get the job. That is, unless I had a serious medical condition preventing me from working, which I don't. I wasn't even in Lagos at the time, but I had to come all the way for the medicals, which I passed. And yes, I did get the job, only for them to tell me that the job was in Kaduna. Like what? All this time, you didn't think to mention that the job was in Kaduna? They did ask during one of the interviews if I minded travelling, to which I answered that it was not a problem. I was open to travelling for a conference, seminar, or short-term job, but relocating and moving my life to a completely new environment where I knew nobody was not what I had in mind. I thought about it for a while because I had been at home for a long time at that point, but I knew that it was definitely not what I wanted. So, I went back to applying for jobs and rejected their offer.

The job I finally got was exactly what I wanted. I made the decision to switch from my engineering path to something in tech - Data Science. The job I got was as a Data Scientist Trainee. For the first five months, the company organised training for us and paid us to learn throughout that period. I couldn't have asked for anything better, to be honest.

Dee

So, it was after I finished my secondary school at the time. I hoped to find a job paying around 30k before continuing my education. So, I met an agent who charged me around 5k for a form and then informed me that he would also collect about 50% of my first salary (laughs), I agreed.

Later on, the agent informed me about three available vacancies, security, factory work, or a hotel job. I decided to try the hotel job and went for an interview. During the interview, I found out that the man wanted me to work as an attendant, bartender, and receptionist. E shock me. All that work for what? 20k? He even promised a raise to 25k after three months. I ran from that job to security guard.

The security job process is crazy. I had to come for training for five days, which was close to a week. After the training, I had to wait until the security agency get a job offer from a company. Then they would select the person who was most fit for the place.

I was eventually picked and they told me the payment would be 20k. The job was one week on duty and one week off. It was not as easy as I had hoped. To be honest, using agents for job hunt is crazy sha. 

Hyacinth

I felt prepared for the job market, but that didn’t take the anxiety inherent in job search away. The main challenge I encountered was employers' poor attitude towards job seekers. In my case, they took my time for granted. They showed little regard for punctuality and rarely apologised for their delays. Perhaps my complaint about time stems from my strong dislike for people who lack fidelity to punctuality or fail to keep to their scheduled time. 

One particularly bad experience I had while seeking a job was when I went for an interview at Fireman Generator in Ikoyi. I ended up waiting for the interview for four hours. The job interview was scheduled for 10 am, but I was interviewed at 2:17 pm. It was far not funny. Thankfully, I eventually got the job I wanted and it gave me room to grow. 

Josh

To be honest, I was blessed to be exposed to this reality quite early. Coming from a very humble home required me to start developing various skills that helped support my university education and gain valuable experience before NYSC. I had already interned at Ministry of Finance and Cross River State Internal Revenue Service, and had been part of various reputable projects before NYSC. 

For bizzare reasons, I and my course mates had to wait over 3 years after completing our BSc program to get mobilised for service, so I had a lot of time to learn a lot of things. My difficult journey through school helped prepare me in some ways. I got a challenging but decent job in a leading logistics company after I interned with them for the last six months of NYSC. 

I wouldn't describe my current job as a "dream job" but despite its complexities, it has helped me improve in many ways, and I have built genuine relationships with some good friends. The working hours are long and take its toll on me mentally and physically, but I relish the challenge and small wins from each situation.

Everyone has their own paths to getting a desirable job, some more difficult than others. But for undergraduates, identifying some valuable skills that you enjoy, tracking how you improve at those skills from time to time, benchmarking yourself with the best minds, surrounding yourself with good people, building good habits, and being close to God can give you a headstart on your journey.