How CareerLife Nigeria is helping job seekers who have Interview Phobia

CareerLife Nigeria was conceived out of the passion to help solve the issue of un-employability among graduates.

The Founder, Yewande Jinadu is someone who had earlier struggled with interviews and she dreaded it so much until she decided to pursue Talent Acquisition as a Career path and learnt how it felt to be at the other side of the table.

The pilot edition of the Employability Fitness Program(EFP) held on the 13^th  July 2019 is aimed at helping jobseekers overcome interview phobia by putting them in an interview with HR Professionals and Subject Matter Experts so that the feedback they would get would be personalized to their unique need and deficiency. Participation in the EFP was entirely FREE.

They were 8 panels consisting of 1 HR Professional and one Subject Matter Experts. Participants were assigned to various panels based on their career interest and were interviewed for 15mins each.

Most participants not only left with personalized feedback on areas of improvement but also left with a free CV and LinkedIn profile review as well as contacts of some panelist who promised to refer them for some roles.

The effect of the program is to make the participants more confident of themselves and also open their eyes to where they have gotten it all wrong. The 25minutes talk by Abiola Omotayo-Benson (Partner, The Workplace Centre) was very insightful because she was able to relate her personal story to the topic of overcoming Interview Phobia.

Here are some excerpts from her talk:

“If you are self-aware and you know the reasons why they should hire you, you would also do better”

“Overcoming phobia has a lot to do with you! Understand yourself, a lot of people are not self-aware. Understand your shortcoming and work on it”

“Ask questions! Sensible ones. Volunteer also, these are ways to build your self-confidence”

The Founder of CareerLife, Yewande Jinadu also gave a 20minutes talk on “What Employers are looking for in a candidate”. In the few minutes, she explained how VALUE is one of the most important things they are searching for.

Not only experienced people have value to give. She explained that fresh graduates also have a lot to offer to employers. She emphasized on how transferable skills gained from school or internships should be communicated to prospective employers.

The participants and panelist got some free refreshments and products courtesy our Corporate Partners: Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, Friesland CampinaWAMCO and Nestle Nigeria Plc.

The Employability Fitness Program still continues with a 3months post-coaching exercise which has already started. Participants and other job seekers who missed the event would go through learning sessions, Interview Preparation, QnA Sessions etc. in a bid to handhold them for the next 3 months and measure the effectiveness of the program.

To join the EFP Post Coaching group on WhatsApp, check out this post