Enugu Idea Fair

It was a successful outing at Universal Hotel, Independence Layout, Enugu, as participants came flooding the venue of the event.

A seasoned meeting for youths aspiring and existing entrepreneurs, Idea Fair is aimed at instilling a culture of entrepreneurship among youths in the south eastern Nigeria, by encouraging them to develop their big ideas into sustainable businesses or expand their existing businesses through the provision of business technical know-how, as well as material and financial support.

3 Most Important Days In The Life of a Man

In the place of meditation with regards to my birthday, something began to unfold in my mind that I felt obliged to share. There is a popular saying that there are three most important days in the life of a man; his

Secondary Schools Employability Skills Awareness Campaign

Girls Secondary School Abakpa 1

Girls Secondary School Abakpa 2

Modern Ideal College Abapka 1

Modern Idea College Abakpka 2

Modern Idea College Abakpka 3

Modern Idea College Abakpka 4

Modern Idea College Abakpka 5

Only yesterday, the media was awash with the report of over 705, 000 people applying for 10, 000 jobs advertised by the police. It is bad enough that we are dealing with a teething unemployment problem, but to also have a bigger challenge called...

Emerging Trends... The Banking Sector (IV)

In continuation of our on-going conversation, as we follow the trends in our banking sector, kindly observe that there is yawning gap in skilled man power that bedevils our labor market. To tackle the gap in skilled manpower in the financial sector, our regulatory authorities are not

Emerging Trends... The Banking Sector (III)

Emerging trends unavoidably come pregnant with CHANGE. It is just that as change happens, there are beneficiaries and casualties. There are winners and there are losers. Any keen observer however, will not find it difficult to ascertain the fact that the automation in the banking sector has made the bank customers the biggest winners.

https://www.google.com.ng/search?q=pictures+on+trends&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir1tCA3v_LAhVCxxQKHQkEA0kQ_AUIBygB&biw=1366&bih=667#tbm=isch&q=pictures+on+banking+trends&imgrc=WKExEJIL2PoiQM%3A

It has reduced the stress of going to banks and spending hours in conducting banking transactions, as one could comfortably use the ATM to withdraw cash without stepping into the banking hall. Now the customer can also choose...

Emerging Trends... The Banking Sector (II)

If you ask Google countries with the highest unemployment rate in the world, it will quickly point the arrow on Sub-Saharan African countries, where Nigeria ranks one of the highest. In fact, only two days ago, President Mohamadu Buhari was called upon to declare a state of emergency over the unemployment situation in Nigeria. Yet the prevailing economic government policies seem not to help matters. Let us look hence at certain state of affairs, in continuation of our discussion on EMERGING TRENDS in the Nigerian banking sector.

To understand where the banks are moving towards, there is need to

Emerging Trends... The Banking Sector

One of the smartest things to do to stay one step ahead is FOLLOWING TRENDS as they emerge. In an attempt to help you do that, we will be exploring in a series certain EMERGING TRENDS across different sectors, with noteworthy concomitant economic consequences. The show begins with the banking sector.

Warren Buffet, one of the world’s richest men propounded what he called the

The Tony Elumelu Foundation, Funding African Entrepreneurs

Still on the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), which took place in Kenya about two weeks ago, here is yet another notable development that made rounds in that epoch making event, which took place in Africa for the first time. It is the great work that the Tony Elumelu Foundation is doing in furtherance of the raising of African entrepreneurs. This is as reported by the foundation.

“The Tony Elumelu Foundation said FINANCE, INFRASTRUCTURE and INADEQUATE RESOURCE CENTERS are the major impediments affecting

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit, in Nairobi.

It is widely accepted that entrepreneurship is the gateway to effective economic development anywhere in the world. It is an undisputable fact today that Nigeria is in a desperate need of innovative, well informed and dynamic youths and entrepreneurs as the drivers of an economy projected by Goldman Sachs, a renowned US based investment giant to be among the first 20 economies in the world by the year...

Employability Skills 4

Culled from this link

Communication Skills

Stephen King said "The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them." If that is anything to go by, then it behooves us to engage a working understanding of the “HOW” to go about saying...

EMPLOYABILITY MATTERS (3)

Interpersonal Skills Illustration

 

Employability or ‘soft skills' are the foundation of your career building blocks and they are frequently referenced in the media as lacking in school-leavers, graduates and those already in employment.  You can appreciate the reason why organisations spend a lot of time and money training staff, not in job specific areas but in general and basic skills.

Suffice it to say however, that in such times of high unemployment, employers have more choice of applicants and will favor those with well-rounded employability skills.

We started out by talking about the importance of these skills and also listing out some of them. The aim of the following series of posts is to beam light on these employability skills, one after the other, as listed in the immediate previous post.

Interpersonal Skills

We don't live in a vacuum or work in isolation. Even in this high-paced technical world, we are always communicating in some way. Since so many of our waking hours are spent working, a great deal of our lives are spent interacting with co-workers, clients and customers.  The ability to use effective interpersonal skills helps you build not just better relationships with others, but makes working with them more enjoyable.

Interpersonal skills are vital when seeking employment and may be the single most important factor for many recruiters.

It was Beatrice Vincent who said ”the people with whom you work reflect your own attitude. If you are suspicious, unfriendly and condescending, you will find these unlovely traits echoed all about you. But if you are on your best behavior, you will bring out the best in the persons with whom you are going to spend most of your working hours.”
Please understand that for the most part in life, what you get from people is a product of who you really are. Interpersonal skills are the skills we use to interact with other people. Good interpersonal skills allow you to participate effectively as a member of a team, satisfy customers and clients' expectations, negotiate, make decisions, manage your time efficiently, take responsibility, and work effectively with other employees.  Well-honed interpersonal skills allow us to empathise and build rapport with colleagues and clients, leading to a better working environment which can be less stressful.

George B Yancey told a story where he said, “Jasmine works in the Elementary Education Advising Center at a state university. Part of her duties are to help enroll undergraduates for the next semester. One undergraduate was having a bad day and took her frustration out on Jasmine. Although she was being verbally attacked, Jasmine maintained a friendly demeanor, a helpful attitude, and a willingness to listen to the student's needs. This calmed the student, and Jasmine was able to reassure her that everything would work out. Subsequently, not only did that student make it a point to be pleasant to Jasmine in the future, but Jasmine's supervisor noted her excellent interpersonal and advising skills and passed on her positive impressions of Jasmine to others in the department. Sometimes the angry customer can serve as an opportunity, if you have the skills to take advantage of that opportunity.”

Jefferey Kluger projects it in another light thus: “We are all born with an innate understanding of interpersonal equity - the idea that if you lend me your rake today, I'll respond in kind when you come to borrow my shovel tomorrow. Or nearly all of us are born with that. Psychopaths aren't.”

 

 

 

 

Employability Matters

WHAT JOB SKILLS ARE EMPLOYERS LOOKING FOR?

Employers are often looking for skills that go beyond qualifications and experience.

While your education and experience may make you eligible to apply for a job, to be successful at the job you will need to exhibit a mix of skills: ‘employability skills’.  This means that the specialist, technical skills

Employability Skills

For many people today, a career for life is no longer an option. Most people will hold jobs with a variety of employers and move across different employment sectors through their working life.

We all need to be flexible in our working patterns and be prepared to change jobs and/or sectors if we believe there are better opportunities elsewhere. 

In order to be flexible we need a set of 'transferable skills' – skills that are not specific to one particular career path but are generic across all employment sectors.