It’s common to see students and even graduates out here today without the necessary basic skills needed for employment and the job market. We don’t even have enough knowledge of how to search for the right jobs and these basic skills have been overlooked for a long time with little attention given. This begs the question to know how we pass through tertiary institution without acquiring this knowledge.

The Ogun state government in collaboration with rovedana, giz, SKYE and bureau of jobs decided to organize a 1-day skill up training program aimed at equipping students of various tertiary institutions in Ogun state with these basic skills such as CV and cover letter writing, how to apply for jobs online, top rated skills needed for jobs among others.

BASIC SKILLS NEEDED FOR THAT DREAM JOB

How to strategically position yourself for jobs even as a student

CV writing and cover letter: The first basic skill which is very important to have in order to land that dream job even as a student or graduate is writing a good CV and cover letter. Most people have lost opportunities because they lack this skill.

CV simply means CURRICULUM VITAE which means "course of life" in Latin. The purpose of a CV is to help sell your skills, experience and show your employers that you are the right person for the job. A CV must be very detailed and can contain many pages. It must contain What you do? How you do it? Your past and current status or career and many others.

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR CV

Before you create that CV, you need to prepare your CV by engaging in the following:

• Assess yourself: You need to ask yourself some personal questions like: Who are you?, What do you enjoy doing? What skills do you have to offer? , How or what means do you offer them?, Your strength and weaknesses?.

• Brainstorm: Ask questions like: What have you done? , past jobs and internships? Your certificates and trainings? , research done? Presentations, writings and publications made?

• Research: Ask questions like: what field interest you? The kind of job you want? Companies that fits your interest?
  After dealing with this personal reflection phase, the next step is to create your CV.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR CV

Planning the structure of your CV: Having a good and detailed structure is the first thing employers look out for in a CV. Most times, we make the mistake of not properly structuring our CV which makes it hard to read and highlight the main points.
Use the following structure when writing your CV:

• Provide your personal details: Your name, address and contact details should be clearly written on top as an header. Avoid using full address when applying for a job for security reasons.

• Provide your personal statement: Next, provide your career summary, professional summary and your brief profile in few sentences clearly written. Highlight your skills that match the job description and you feel you can offer to the company.

• Provide your skills summary: that is, soft skills and technical skills using keywords such as expert, beginner, intermediate and so on.
  For example, I am an expert in data analysis using excel.

• Provide your employment history: that is, your work history, experience, start and end date and specific job roles.

• Your achievement should be highlighted in bullet points using past tense.
  Your Education and Interest/ Extra-curricular activities: Avoid using the word hobbies in place of Extra-curricular activities.

• Always use facts, figures and situations to give detailed descriptions.

Other basic Skills:

• Skill up: You can’t apply for jobs without even having what to offer in the first place thus the need for more skills. It’s important to skill up even while in school based on your interest.
  (Watch out for my next post titled "Skill up or Go Starving" ).

• Talk to people: human relationship is very important especially if you want to scale up. Building vital relationships with people in your field and ahead of you can save you from troubles, put you on the right track and help you leverage connections.

• Finally, Look like it. Dress and package yourself well.

I hope you have learnt a great deal especially on writing a good CV.

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Much love 😍