Africa’s largest internship Fair — October 4, 2016
“Nigeria’s unemployment rate RISES to 10.4 percent” — National Bureau of Statistics, March 2016.
Never, since I was born have I heard the news that says “Nigeria’s unemployment rate decreases by 10.4%…” instead, it has always been on the rise. Okay, maybe not, so, let’s check the stats.
Well, according to the stats, from Jan 2015, till sometime this year, it has always been on the increase.
Who shall save us?
Internships
Naturally, I want to tell you how many interns have slid into full-time roles, but, I don’t have the data…not sure the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria does. So, let’s work with some assumptions.
Internships, are a form of apprenticeships. More like, Formal apprenticeships.
Most times, they thrive on the facts that they are less fatal for both parties involved (The Employer and the Intern). How?
As an intern, internships can do 3 things for you:
- Career-fit Test: Most of the time, we choose future careers based off what the seniors in our environment have told us. That is, others example over personal experience. With an internship, you get to test, you get to be thrown into the water, you either sink or swim. Because of their timely nature, you are able to endure (if you don’t like it), knowing that you would not do this for life. But, if you do enjoy it, it re-affirms the career choice you earlier made.
- Earn some cash: Who wouldn’t do with a little more cash? Whether you want to purchase the next Yeezy footwear with a Nike Swoosh (trust my aba boys), or you want to take that peng babe on Twitter out. Internships afford you marginally larger disposable income than those already working full-time, since you most likely are living under your parents roof, are not feeding yourself, enjoying home wifi (for the elite kids) etc.
- Learn and Network: Gary Vaynerchuk in a Youtube video I saw on Facebook, explained that internships are really not about the learning but the networking. Some say during their applications that they look forward to become better Graphic Designers, Mobile App Developers, Business Developers etc. While, the experience does that for you unconsciously, internships are a great platform to network and bump up the number of you LinkedIn connections to that 500+. It’s a time for you to ask about the CEOs day in the elevator or randomly go out for lunch with a bunch of professionals. Essentially, it is a time of networking. Think of it as a 6 — 11 week networking event.
As an employer, I bet we already know this, but hell yeah, I like to hear myself talk, so I am going to say it either way.
- Cheap Labour: No sugar-coating is needed, if you ever requested to hire an intern over a full-time staff, you most likely no what I am talking about. Many of us say, we are training them, really?, don’t you train the people that come into your analyst role? I am not saying it is wrong, I am just saying if I had a company, in it’s early phase I would hire interns that can do the job before reaching out for FT staff.
- Interviews suck: You know why many employers spend time and deploy resources when hiring? because it is hard to assess a person through a written piece about the person’s life experience usually referred to as a CV and a miserable interview process. So, what do we as employers do? we hire interns, watch their performance over time which is a better prediction of how they would fair if given a full-time role, and once we find that Rock-star intern, other things being equal, we extend him an offer. We take him off the Job market (reduced unemployment rate) and we hedge our hiring cost.
Benjamin, we know all these things you are telling us. Where are these internships?
It is really hard finding qualified interns, Benjamin. I guess you already know this seeing that you work at a recruitment agency, Stutern.
Oh well, I might have an answer for both groups.
Over the past 2 months a group of persons in-touch with the unemployment situation in Nigeria came together and decided to hold an event that would see 1000+ interns get placed. How? — you ask. Well, I like to think that the question HOW should not be our major question. But where? and when?
The Nigerian Internship Fair ‘16
In the past, we have had Job Fairs even in Nigeria, but very little for internship fairs.
Lagos-based company, Stutern, has put together an event for employers to hire top undergraduates or recent graduates who are looking to kick start their careers through internships.
Want to participate?
Thanks for getting to the end of this post.
Kindly visit the site for more details.
