The meaning of Jobpalava
Exactly 1 week ago, we all saw some social media rants about interns not being treated well by their employers. Don’t worry, I won’t relay the message again.
Since Stutern is the face of internships and graduate entry level jobs in Nigeria, we decided not to push this case under the bus. This morning, we opened up Jobpalava to the public. For employees to review their employers, old and new, good and bad.
Some real user stories
Two weeks ago, a candidate called the Stutern office line narrating that his employer isn’t abiding by the employer-employee agreement they both made. He said that he was made to work long extra hours. He not only met his target, but also surpassed it. But still, the employer failed to keep to the promise of raising his pay as an intern after the third month. Since he wasn’t the only candidate we had with this employer, we decided to call the others. Similar story. We reviewed this and communicated with the employer the need to treat their interns better if they wanted to attract good candidates in the future.
That’s not to say it’s all sour. In the past couple of years, we’ve received some really good stories from interns as well. Some even went as far as buying the Stutern team gifts or coming by our office to express their gratitude. An example that stood out for me is that of a young lady we posted to a company. After some months working with the company, her pay was increased by over 100%. She was also given an official line, a computer, and provided allowance for monthly internet. The company even went further to help process her international passport for an international conference. Stories like this make us take pride in what we do — corroborating the fact that there are deserving people out there who just need to be given a golden opportunity. That’s the purpose of internships.
We hope the feedback we collate on Jobpalava can help companies improve the way they treat all their staff so they can attract the best candidates, regardless of their rank. We also hope that people looking for jobs get some insight on what these companies are really like.
The website is pretty simple; employees get to rate their employers (past or current) and provide comments. The overall ratings are on a 5-star scale with 5 being the best and 1, the worst.. We turned this around in barely a week, so there’s still a lot of work to be done. We hope to make updates in the coming weeks.
So, if you have a story about an employer that can help others looking to join these companies (both past and present, the great, the good and the really bad), please do share. Please head over to Jobpalava, it’s anonymous. No one will know who spilled, not even us ;).
