Are You a Job Seeker or Value Creator? Your Choice

Femi Longe
Qiesto
Published in
4 min readJan 13, 2020

At Qiesto, we recognize one key fact — that employers do not hire job seekers to fill roles.

No, they don’t.

Can you find an answer to their problem?

They hire value creators instead.

Value creators are people who can do the actual work that goes into achieving the objectives of a particular role.

But isn’t everyone a job seeker if they are looking to be employed — you ask?

Actually, no.

There is a big difference between a job seeker and a value creator.

Hello Job Seeker

The term ‘job seeker’ implies that you are looking to be occupied.

It implies that you are looking for someone outside yourself to do you the favour of occupying you.

Using the term ‘job seeker’ means that it doesn’t really matter what you give. It only matters that you get something in return.

To a job seeker, any job will do.

To them, it’s not about what they can contribute. It’s about finding a place to go that can pay them a wage at the end of the month whether they contributed or not.

A job seeker has no understanding of what the organization is trying to achieve and what their individual role is in the bigger picture.

Their scope of concern is their own tiny little corner. They don’t bother bringing their full self to work.

Job seekers are the kind of people that need to be told what to do. They are hardly proactive, hardly creative and they hardly take any risks.

In a sea of candidates, job seekers are the norm. They don’t stand out.

The only thing that gets them the job is desperation. The kind of desperation that employers experience when they can’t find value creators.

For most job seekers though, unemployment is their constant companion.

Choose your path…

So who are Value Creators?

Well, they are a different species. And they are usually the darling of all employers.

Value creators understand that their engagement in employment should be a win-win situation.

For them, being in a job should be a win for both themselves and their employer.

They, therefore, come to the initial interactions seeking to understand where they can be most valuable.

They clearly communicate their value-add in interviews and due to this, they are more likely to get the job.

And once they get the job, they end up spending their time fulfilling their initial promise within the role.

Value creators don’t even need a job to be useful. They constantly spot needs and move to address them.

They volunteer with a charity rather than hang around waiting to be employed.

They find people and organizations who have problems and offer solutions.

They share knowledge about what they know and what they are learning.

Value creators have a growth mindset. They believe you can get better at anything you set your mind to. They look for every opportunity to improve themselves.

They are constant learners. They are always striving to morph into an increasingly better version of themselves. And this allows them to hone in and still diversify the kind of value they can provide.

Unleashing African Value Creators

At Qiesto, we believe human beings are capable of becoming better versions of who they currently are.

We are keen about turning Africa’s teeming mass of job seekers into value creators.

We don’t believe you are born a value creator. With the right exposure and personal decisions, you can become one.

We recognize how becoming value creators enables a WIN for the young people, the organizations they engage with as employers or clients and the larger society.

Our mission, should young people choose to accept it, is to shift their mindset from job seeking to value-creating. We have a fun method in the works to make this happen

Fasten your seatbelts

This rocket ship is about to take off and we promise to have enough seats. So join our mission.

Engage with Qiesto on our website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn

Do you know other traits and characteristics of job seekers and value creators? Share with us in the comment section below

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Femi Longe
Qiesto

CcHub. Entrepreneur, Social Innovator, Dreamer, Teacher, Organiser, Seeker, Changemaker, Son of Africa