Corporate world, varsities collaboration vital to addressing shortfall in skilled workforce’

Harry Nnoli, a management consultant and business philosopher, is the author the book, ‘You’re Hired’. In this insightful interview with KELECHI EWUZIE, he x-rays how collaboration between corporate organisations and academic institutions can forge a linkage to address the issue of unemployment. Excerpt:

Career path

I started my career in the pharmaceutical industry. I have over 20 years of corporate experience across different disciplines sales, marketing, logistics, business management and strategy and of course across different industries.

My career started with a company then known as Smithkline Beecham which is now Glaxo Smithkline as a sales man. I later moved on into the fast moving consumer goods because I wanted to have a career in core marketing that was when I joined Promasidor (then Wonder Foods) as a brand manager for Cowbell. After two years’ stint, I left them to join a company now known as Airtel but then it was called Econet Wireless.

Later in my career, I pursued a career in the finance industry, banking to be specific. I work for a bank now known as access bank then called intercontinental bank as the group head in charge of brand management and corporate communication. I would later leave and went into full blown consulting, leadership, sales, marketing and service areas.

At the point when government began to encourage electronic payment with the introduction of cashless policy by Central Bank of Nigeria, I became the country head for a company known as transaction payment solutions which operate across seven African countries with Headquarters in the United Kingdom.

Apart from the main stream professional work, I do other things, I am a motivational speaker. I talk at conference both in Nigeria and outside the country.

Leadership style

Well my leadership style is very open. I try to get people involve. I believe in the potential of the human person, so I get people involved and I try not to abdicate, I try to delegate. I believe in empowering people. I don’t want people to do what I say because I am the CEO of my organisation or the head of the house, I want them to do what I say because they can see themselves in what I am saying to them. I want them to see that in listening to me they can be transformed and they will be the better for it.

So in term of leadership style, I believe in the style of leadership that transforms people not the one that pull and lords things over people. This is the problem that Africa has because the so called leader who are occupying what I called positional leadership are just trying to subjugate the people, but true leadership is transformational, inspire the people, they will follow you.

About the book, ‘You are Hired’

Before I embarked on writing the book, ‘You’re Hired’, I talked to a lot of people especially young people in seminars and I found out that there is a certain frustration within the system. People are not being able to find jobs of their dream. So this book is a way of helping professionals to be able to secure any job of their dreams.

Why am I confident that when a person gets hold of this book, ‘You’re Hired’, such a person can secure a dream job, is based on the fact that the book does offer a lot of industry insights.

First it gives professionals and every job seeker a proper mindset. The book shows job seekers what employers are looking for. The reason why a lot of people apply for job and don’t get it is because they don’t present themselves well. Nobody can sell you better than yourself.

So in this book, I have shown the readers what top employers are looking out for in every applicant. The whole idea is that the job seeker can position him or herself as someone that can offer to the prospective employers what his is looking for. There are qualities that employers look out for globally irrespective of the market and society. So that is what I try to capture in this book. For as long as applicants see themselves as job seekers, they may be without a job for a very long time, but once they get to see themselves as a man or woman of value, someone who has something to offer then they are in with a chance because no employer is willing to employ someone who doesn’t bring value to his organisation.

So the book basically addresses the need for applicants to have background information of how employers assesses for job candidates. The book also shows job seekers how they can discover their strongest point for any job interview. It also shows them how to prepare for interviews, the strategy they need to deploy to be able to with a high level of confidence make a success out any interview.

The book also contains what I call the three R strategies: Research the company, rehearse what you research about the company and more importantly, you must replicate what you have rehearsed at the interview venue. I say to people, the secret of success is confidence and the secret of confidence is preparation.

The only way a man can be confident of what he wants to do is that he has prepared for it. So in the three R strategy, candidates are encourage to research very well, rehearse very well and that puts him on a very good pedestal to be able to replicate what he has rehearse based on what he has researched.

Having done that, I am confident that the candidate stands in a good position to get the job. The book shows you the types of jobs to select if there are options and then if you are a professional and you are already working, it shows you how to make career progress within a short time. I am leveraging on my experience and what experts have said. Just in case a job seeker reads this book and does not get a job after applying the principles in the book, it does not mean the end of the world, just take the learning from the interviews, your job search experience and create a job.

The problems and the adverse situation that we see in our environment is an individual opportunity to make a difference.

Shortfall in qualify skilled talents in organisations

There is something I said in the book you are hired. A professional’s qualification can get him through the door of an interview, but securing that dream job requires much more, it goes beyond the paper certificates.

Why? Because there are other skills which such candidates may not have learnt in the universities. With all due respect to our university system, I think government needs to look into the level of education urgently and more critically with the view of making it relevant to the market place.

We have come to realise that a lot of the information that our universities today impact on students are not relevant for the current market place. The information though may inspire students to learn which is what education is all about, but the government and its agency must make this aspect of learning relevant to go beyond inspiring students to learn. It must go beyond the structures and theories written in the textbook, to things that have practical application.

We don’t use theories in today’s competitive market place; theories don’t generate more revenues in business or help businesses cut cost. So that is how employers define value.

In recruitment exercise today, academic qualification is just 20 percent of what modern companies require because academic qualification just gets the candidate through the interview door and employers are no longer looking for just paper qualifications because a lot of candidates have got it, what employers are looking for is something extra that makes a job seeker different from the thousands that applied for the same job.

As a job seeker or professional, one thing you have to learn is how to communicate and communicate effectively because you don’t have all the time to sell yourself during interviews. Communication is one basic skill lacking in a lot of job seekers today because they were not taught in school. Communication skill is one of the skills that employers look for in a candidate. Apart from that, employers look for team player, someone that has interpersonal skill.

Most importantly, the employer is looking for a man who has a positive, winning mental attitude why? Because your aptitude may never get you too far, it is your attitude that would take you to your highest level of your career or business pursuit. These are the soft skills that employers are looking for. An employer is looking for a generalist not a specialist.

Role of educational system in curbing unemployment

Our educational system should play a huge in tackling unemployment, but sad to say they are not because the curriculum we are still using in the universities and tertiary institutions are ancient curriculum, it is about time everybody changed it.

The professors are doing a good job in the schools, but what we are saying is that government must also intervene. There are people who know what should be taught. I don’t see any reason why there should not be a link between the university research and development department in universities and corporate organisations.

There should be. The academia are on their own and the corporate organisation are on their own, thing shouldn’t be like that. This is also a call to corporate organisations they must get involved in the business of funding the universities and their education system.

By the time corporate organisation start funding research and development in various departments, they will surely make a demand of that department. I tell you nobody is better place to help corporate organisation solve problems than the universities.

But that currently doesn’t happen so what happens, there are lots of room, we need partnership. The academia should come together with the corporate environment and government to forge an education that really works for us because currently what we have doesn’t work.

Sadly, most Nigerian undergraduates are being taught to graduate and look for paid employment and so a lot of graduates end of looking for jobs. The universities and other tertiary institution must be able to inculcate in their curriculum personal development subjects.

Skills that seeks to enhance not just the employability of graduate, but their ability to be able to identify market needs and meet the market needs with the investment they have made on themselves so that whether the jobs come or the jobs doesn’t come, they re never at a disadvantage because if the job come, they would do the job, if the job don’t come, they would create one so it become a win-win.

That is what we are advocating for. we are planning to take this book you are hired to the universities, not just in Nigeria but in Ghana, we are working with different agencies to see how we can make that happen without the students paying for it because we know that the information contain here would revolutionise the way undergraduates think, if we can revolutionise their thinking, then we can revolutionise their output and that is the whole idea. So that by the time he or she come for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) they are ready for the world.

Work and family balance

Well, it is based on God’s grace that I am able to combine both work and family. The Lord has taught me to be able to compartmentalise my life which means that when I am in the office, I am expected to be in the office and do all that I am expected to do in the office.

When I go to church, God expects me to be in church as though I never went to work or stay at home. When I am at home, I am expected to at home and give undivided attention my wife and children.

These various aspects of a man should not bring misbalance or a disjoint to the man; they should actually make the man to be stable. Your spirituality first, your family, your job and then recreation. These entire things are very important. So I have learnt to compartmentalise; with this I realise that wherever I am, I try not worry about what I am not supposed to worry about. When I leave the office, I leave the office; I don’t carry office work home.

Prospect

For me with this book, ‘You’re Hired’ as the name implies, is a complete guide that empowers the young professional to get any job of his dream without being intimidated.

I think it is the right of every professional to work in an environment that delights him or her. I see this book as being the benchmark for every professional that comes out of school even before they come out of school, this book should have given you new orientation not just in Nigeria alone.

We are taking the book to Ghana; my plan is that we would take the book to the West African sub rejoin with the view of taking it across Africa. We are working with government agency to see how young graduates can access this book. We are also working with certain universities see how they can make this book available to their under graduates.

This book as a matter of fact is like a bible for the undergraduates and graduates because of the mindset that the book create in the mind of the of the young professional, make him believe and know that he owes his environment something, your environment does not owe you, you owe your nation the opportunity to present the value that you have within yourself.

So I say to people work not to be a man or woman of success, work to be a man of value because if you are man of value, you become successful. Value here is how do you help your society to become better, once you answer that and practicalise it; you are a man or woman of value.