Get Ready for Job Market During your NYSC

How to Get Ready for the Job Market During your NYSC Year

Over the years, I have watched countless times how passing out NYSC corp members ask, “What next after NYSC?” I watch these people and ask myself are these people really in their right senses. I know you too would be asking ‘what is this guy talking? ‘What have these corp members done wrong to ask such question?’

I don’t want to stress the matter much. Let me just say that there a saying that ‘failure to prepare is preparing to fail”. At this time in the life of this passing out corp members most of them would be clocking nearly 30 years old. If at the time of passing out you have not planned the way your life is meant to be are you planning to spend another one year planning that?

I would mention that the service year affords a corp member the perfect time, after 4-5 years of trying to get a certificate, to take a pause in his life, and reflect on his life. It is ideal to take the time to deeply reflect about the past in their life and to watch where their future is leading them and try to steer their boat to the better direction they want their life to be. ~ Read 12 Reasons Why You Should Become a C.L.O During NYSC

How can the NYSC serve as a perfect time to prepare for the future?

Preparing For The Future During Your NYSC

Follow NYSC Programs

The NYSC program itself is filled up with a lot of opportunities for this young graduates who are still about to taste what the job market is. The NYSC has created a lot of avenues for corp members to get financial awards, scholarship awards, employment awards and offers, loans, and much more.

With its new SAED program corpers can get to learn skills that can be useful to them right during the service or right after. There are just about many programs that the NYSC SAED offers which any corp member would always find something that interest or suits them.

All this corp members need to do is to step up to grab this opportunity. Sad to say about 80% of corpers snub at this opportunities during their service year.  Right from the camp they ignore the lectures and fail to participate in the trainings. Why they do that I cannot say. Maybe thet see it as being too menial, or they feel shy to go for them thinking about how other corp members would see them, or maybe they feel that these opportunities in NYSC are not real, that likely those in authority would have long preserved it for their candidates. I don’t really blame them with the corruption in this country they have the right to think that way.

For whatever reason you may have as far as I am concerned there are no reasonable fact behind them. If you say it is menial which work in our job market is not menial, you must always serve somebody even your customers. If you say you are shy then you are not ready to pick your file and look for job. If you also reason that the opportunities have been slotted out for some special people, have you tried it before and you were not picked? What prove do you have to back that claim?

Please don’t sit back reluctantly so that at the tail end of your service year or after the service year you would be asking what next.

see: Serve in Rural Area?

Training Programs

Apart from the NYSC SAED programs that provide manual skills and professional skills corp members themselves can look for programs that can boost their C.V. There is nothing wrong with enrolling in vital programs during your service year because after your service your foremost concern should be to get employed or to employ yourself not getting some new training. Unless you are like the fellows that wants to further their schooling. (I imagine how they want to make money from more school when they have not made any from the one they have gone through already. Am just saying)

Prepare Yourself

They are some things you can do on your own to prepare yourself after service. You know right after service you would be looking for jobs. Do you know how to write a catchy c.v? Remember your C.V is all your employee would need to have a first impression of you. A lot of job seekers soon found out that there C.V’s are dumped aside severally because of not knowing how to write an attractive C.V.

What other areas can you prepare yourself? If you are learning a skill have you started making use of it? What are you doing right now to make money out of it? Working on yourself can fully prepare you to make bigger plans for them after service year.

Read and Read

You are a graduate now after passing through many years of reading. You do not need to stop now. You do not have to be like the many Africans that have the culture of not reading. A lot of the opportunities you have in the future would be hidden in the written word. That is the opportunity market we find ourselves today. There are lot of places to get useful information such as newspapers, online business and news site, matured forums, motivational books, self development books and the like.

So my friends learn to see and use the opportunities available to you while in service and prepare for your future career. You could have more ideas than I have just mentioned. Kudos to you if you do then you would be showing more wisdom than many ex-corpers. Sincerely I am glad to have shared this with you.

Build your network

An effective way to widen your prospects when looking for job opportunities is through building relationships. Networking with your corp members or any professional you meet will allow you to learn of any future vacancy. This will also help you stay at the forefront of any available position. The process of searching for the right job is complicated. Online application and just part of the puzzle. So don’t ignore those relationships you may have forged in the camp.

Practice your interviewing skills

In the already saturated labour market, employers have become more selective about who they choose to employ, you definitely need to stand out. Always, in your spare time, try to do a rehearsal or practice of common interview skills. It is not always about personality. Being authentic is very important. Practising your interview skills through communication will help you become prepared to clinch the job.

Learn new skills

As a corp member, you will have the opportunity to key into many free and cheap training to boost your skills. You will find some training for job preparation, job search and job readiness. This will help you better your job acquisition skills.

Learn how to use new digital channels.

Because video calling and document management will be more widespread, you’ll probably need to become acquainted with video interviews or meetings.

Digital training for remote workers is accessible on sites like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, YouTube, and Udemy.

To begin, use the free online training given by the platform’s development companies: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Google. Then, for collaborative work, use teamwork tools like Basecamp, Asana, and Trello. The majority of them are simple to use and understand.

Make your LinkedIn profile shine.

When the job market heats up, this will serve as your personal advertisement when presenting yourself to potential employers.

List any recent accolades or achievements, as well as any new work-related expertise you’ve picked up in the last few weeks that will make you more appealing to remote employers.

Use LinkedIn to locate people you might like to engage with at a firm where you aspire to work. Follow the ones that pique your interest. Examine the profiles of others in your field for suggestions on how to improve your own.

Maintain control over your online persona.

Delete any posts on your social media profile that you don’t want hiring managers or recruiters to access.

Search for your name and select the top ten results. You’re examining what a prospective boss can see. Indeed, potential employers are scrutinising you across all digital channels these days.

A few of your digital footprint is your own designs; at the very least, you should have presentable LinkedIn and Facebook pages. However, keep an eye out for Facebook posts that you were tagged in but did not create. Remove yourself from any unethical connections.

I just hope you would make me glad too by leaving a kind word at the box below.