Boboye: Jobseekers, Employers Can Secure Work, List Job Openings for Free on Our Platform

Mr. Oreoluwa Boboye is the chief executive officer of Jobberman, Nigeria’s leading recruitment and linkage platform. In this interview with Raheem Akingbolu, he speaks about starter promo, Nigerian education and other sundry issues.

In 2022, the unemployment rate in Nigeria is estimated to reach 33%. This figure was projected to be at 32.5% in the preceding year. What are some of the things Jobberman is doing to close this gap?

Jobberman is a recruitment opportunity platform or a linkage platform. So, our strength and the reason why we operate in that space in Nigeria are to bridge the gap between the demand and supply. Demand in this case is the job and supply means the candidates. There are many reasons why the unemployment rate is skyrocketing right now and the most common one is our economic situation. Another issue is the continuous brain drain. Many talented people do travel out of the country to look for jobs elsewhere. Interestingly, one thing we have found responsible for this is lack of access to opportunity on the part of job seekers. So, the role that we play at Jobberman Nigeria is to bridge that gap as much as possible, and that is why we come up with initiatives at every point in time that can help encourage the demand side. For instance, our new initiative stater product focuses on entry – level jobs where most of the people in the unemployment bracket break in. With this, employers can get to post entry-level jobs to an audience of multiple job seekers for free, over the next 3 months. We also do a lot of communications with candidates informing them that a certain job exists. At the end of the day, as employers are happy with the placement and candidates also rejoicing that they get a job, the unemployment gap continues to reduce.

What impact will this have on the Nigeria’s labour market?

The starter promo will make job seekers privy to more employment opportunities.
Companies that have engaged us over the years realised that there is a reason to have a recruitment budget. They identified the fact that to get quality in a recruitment process there is need to invest some money into it.  But there are a lot of SMEs or small employers that do not have that budget. Some do but they have it reserved for their higher -level targets. With this starter promo you can post your entry level positions for free and have people engage without having to spend the cost of recruitment.

Why have you decided to focus on early starters?

When you look at the employment rate for now, we have few executives compared to entry level.  If you want to drive impact especially from an employment point of view, you drive impact where it is most needed. Every year the Nigerian education system produces thousands and thousands of graduates that do not have experience who are looking for where to have experience. For us, we want to ensure that on the demand side, that’s on the employee’s side, opportunities are feasible enough to capture a very sizable percentage of that.

Lack of skill and experience are some of the reasons young Nigerians do not get employment. Will the newly launched starter promo address this issue?

It is true that many companies prefer experienced candidates. They however need to understand that education and learning are beyond the walls of the classrooms. Some of these youths are still versatile and learn everywhere. Organisations cannot write off the importance of entry level in their companies. There are basically things that need to be done by entry-level people because they are young enough to do that and also because they are repetitive, so it makes sense for employers to also hire entry level people. One of the thing that these people drive is that they will balance out their employer’s requirements as It is obvious that some companies cannot afford some of the very experienced guys. We also encourage job seekers to embark on self-education and training. This is what we have been advocating for in the last two years, and we have made training free on our platform for these candidates. Beyond you being proficient in your profession you will realise that such skill is what will keep you going in your job. Employers will rather hire someone that is teachable and has a good understanding of empathy, emotional intelligence, time management and someone that is just a high performer. Apart from what you have learnt in school or gained from other learning environments, you are valuable enough to the employer in spite of your zero work experience because you can understand things quickly to start to impact on the business.