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It is on. The war of talents have officially started. It is not just some speculation anymore, but a genuine reality, around the world. This last few years, the lack of talents has reached a new peak. Employers have been fighting over getting the best profiles on a daily basis  in order to create added value.

Digital and engineering professions are by far the most concerned by this phenomenon. The 2018 edition of the IESF national enquiry- Engineering and Scientist society of France- shows that in france engineers are paid 17% higher than other executives.

it is urgent for all businesses to look for solutions to attract and keep the rare profiles that are in the job market, because they are an important driver of changes in a business place. But how to really do that? Here are some solutions…

Create a new way of hiring 

The time when candidates had to approach the recruiter is long gone now because nowadays it is the recruiter who is in a position when he has to attract the candidate because of the undergoing issue of lack of talents. There are many ways that exist that allow recruiters to do that by interacting with their potential hires. We have the social media for example and chatbots, online forums, joboards, live chats, to name a few. Recruiters who are seeking talents do not hesitate to go as far as creating contents or appealing events for potential hires, to step out of the formal classic hiring method.

Offer an attractive salary

A good salary compensation is certainly the main factor that would make a candidate choose a company from the get go whatever that company is. However, one can’t help but admit that a high fixed or gross salary doesn’t necessarily mean that it is appealing. Therefore,  considering the fact that there is a big hunt for latents, it would be better for companies to be on the top of their game and highlight all their benefit package which would include the number of day off, reduction in working hours, interest and involvement, the creation of a labor union and of any tax-efficient package allowing you to prepare your future. All those benefits will have your company seem attractive to the talents.

Make your company become a real great place to work

A work environment is very crucial for the worker. We noticed that , armchairs and foosballs are now parts of the  companies and that it thanks to the influence of startups. Even better, private gym clubs for the sole use of workers are being the standard in majority of companies. All those innovations are proof of how important is a nice working environment for future colleagues. It is even more important for the young generation. Basically, if as a business you need to be on top of the game considering the talent’s war, the working environment you offer is not something that should be taken lightly.

in a time where Africa is active and opening up to the world, it is crucial for Human Resources to get all the te required qualifications to adjust to international standings. Young African are very much aware of that. For that reason, they take it upon themselves to go and get the appropriate training to fit with the needs of the international companies settling in the continent in search for opportunities. With that in mind, multinationals have finally realized that it was not that smart to come and move in the black continent with men and bags. If that used to be the true for multinationals companies back then, nowadays it seems like old news.

Local recruitment at all levels of the company…

From middle to top management, multinationals companies that are settled in the African continent are now taking chances on local talents because they know that it is a win win situation. Hiring local talents is beneficial in terms of cost and speed whatever the business line is or the wanted profession. Hiring very expensive expats is no longer the way to go for companies who are increasingly looking to hire locally. Most of the time, there are many costs of different types included in the contract of the expat. Housing, the kids school fees, risk allowance related to the security of the hosting country etc are all included.

The “africanisation” of recruitment for a lesser cost 

This last few years, multinationals have been « africanising » their human resources by recruiting the local talents in an effort to avoid paying for all the expenses that come with hiring expats. When questioned about the reason behind that trend, a lot of human resources specialists felt as it had two goals in mind. The first one being the fact that it allowed to benefit from on site talents and save money from hiring costly expats. The second one being the fact that hiring local talents means hiring people who have a better knowledge of the ground,and the economic and social background. All those advantages are vital for each position related to law, marketing or supply chain. Because they are very much aware of that aspect, multinationals companies tend to increasingly hire local talents instead of international workers. Let’s just say that the times where multinationals companies would come settle in Africa with bags and human resources from abroad are long gone.

The new information and communications technology have made life easier for workers who are now more flexible because they don’t have to be present in the actual office to do the work they are asked to do. This revolutionary opportunity commonly known as teleworking is spreading all over the African continent.

Teleworking specifically refers to a particular work organization where you have a professional activity but you are entirely or partly doing it from a remote place. Thanks to the Information and communications technology (internet, cellphone, fax etc)  the work is done outside of the business premises. It can be done from a home, from a telecentre, a satellite office etc.

With a population of 60% of young people, half of them being unemployed, Africa can now reverse the trend by considerably reducing the unemployment rate thanks to teleworking.

This is at least what one of the International Labour Organization’s report on job in Africa confirmed. This report named “relocation and working conditions in Africa” is the first in depth study conducted on teleworking, and includes “spoken”services on one side, like call centers or customers contact centers and administrative services on the other side like finance and accounting, processing and management of computer data, and human resources development.

According to this report, teleworking generally speaking, which include relocation and externalisation of the services of the developed countries to the developing countries thanks to information technologies, created “relatively decent jobs giving the local practices” in Africa.

However, the report asks for an improvement of the teleworking sector in Africa, so it can offer a real decent job in the continent. This advocacy is even more relevant giving the fact that every year, one out of two graduates from one of the hundreds African universities, can’t seem to have a successful professional integration in his area of expertise, or try his luck in Europe where the country as much as the economy are getting less and less welcoming.

Teleworking intends to be a tool that will allow young Africans to benefit from means that would make them grow and prosper in a job market that is more and more opened and international.

Africa could rise to the top of the world job market and be among the best thanks to the burst of teleworking, especially now considering the fact that the world is dealing with a serious lack of qualified multi tasked workers.

Usually, most job seakers face rejection of their job applications for a job that they were however dreaming about. Getting a negative feedback after a job interview is something that all job seakers have experienced before. There are plenty of consequences whether it is deception or lack of confidence, especially when it is something rather frequent. However nothing is lost. Instead of losing hope you should focus on your failures to move forward. The outcome can only be good. Here are some clues to successfully do that.

Update your CV

You are convinced that this job is yours and that your profile is exactly what they are looking for? However, your application has not been selected. Instead of seeing it as a failure, you should accept it by asking yourself why it didn’t work. If indeed your application has not been selected it is probably because you need to review some things. Take the time to go over the job posting and adjust your CV. If for some reason related to a lack of information or an incoherence you can seem to find the problem, look for the opinion of a third party who might be able to be unbiased and objective. It would help you next time.

Try to find out more about the reasons why you were rejected by questioning the employer…

No matter what the situation we are facing is, we need to understand it in order to better handle it and move forward. Therefore if you have a negative feedback after an interview, try your best to understand what happened. Do not hesitate to have a conversation with the employer in order to ask him specific questions about the reasons why you got rejected. This conduct will benefit you because it will allow you to bring some changes to your future applications. The mistake you have made during your interview was maybe to badly showcase your skills or not tell your work experience with coherence. If you succeed in finding the root to the problem, your won’t loose your motivation and you will put all the chances on your side next time.

Do not rely on just one application…

If you idealize a job position to a point where you only apply for that job, getting rejected by the recruiter could affect you and therefore crush you down. This is why you should double your applications so you have more chances of getting other job interviews. If when you get a negative feedback from an employer you already have other interviews planned, then it won’t affect your mood. Either way always keep in mind this famous quote by Nelson Mandela «  I never lose, I either win or learn ». Let’s just say that a rejected application is at least an additional experience.

Even though pleas have always been made to promote SME in the African continent, they have  rarely given the expected results because of rare financing means and strict conditions on loans acquisitions at traditional banks.

Now, this widely criticized trend seems to be declining in favor of the new opportunities that the rapid growth of the 21 century digital revolution is offering. Thus, if not so long ago it was put on the sideline of economic development policy, the funding of project ideas is starting to gain some interest in the African continent. Innovative project developers are being hired especially among the youngster.

Bilateral, multilateral or private public funding companies have more and more interest in Africa because they are very much aware of all the possibilities that digital can offer like the ability to make incubators be some kind of project development labs.

The desired result are job creations, contribution to national added value and as indirect result reducing the unemployment rate within the young African population.

The promotion of the potential value in the entrepreneurship of young African students has become a reality thanks to the reinforcement of professionalization and research in the continent higher education. The creation of Small and MEdium size Entreprises (SME) which usually represent 80 or 90% of the specific features of companies in African countries, has become marvelously more active. It is because of a more active implication of young African in the conception and building of progects.

Administrations along with international development institutions act as guarantees to allow young entrepreneurs ( startups included) to borrow money which is crucial to the development of their progects.

It is a way of supporting young entrepreneurs by allowing them to overcome the obstacles of funding their progects. We have CTIC as an example in Dakar, Senegal which has the support of public authority, World Bank  and private companies especially mobile phone companies. This Senegalese incubator is also financed by payments from the profits of some fifteen incubated companies. There are incubators in other African countries that practically work the same way as this one, for the greater benefit of young entrepreneurs.

With plenty of candidates coming to have a job interview, the recruiter will obviously set his heart on the one that will give him the best impression. That is the reason why, beyond the skills, the first impression the recruiter gets to have about you is very determining on your chances to get hired. As a matter of fact some HR specialists agree on the fact most of the time, it only takes 10 minutes for a potential hire to win over the recruiters. That goes to say how the first minutes of the face face meeting can be determining on the outcome of the job interview. Reason why it is important to know the secrets to giving the best impression from the very beginning.

Do not be late…

There is nothing that could tarnish more the image of the candidate than coming late at the job interview. That behavior could give to the recruiter the impression that you are not interested or too lax. It could be viewed as a lack of a sense of responsibility or of commitment. Therefore it will benefit you to be a ahead of any unpredictable situation like traffic for example so you don’t get late. Getting there actually early will not do you wrong. You will be able to use the extra time to go over your CV, t to pull yourself together by working on your breathing, check your outfit.

Pay attention to your body language…

It is no secret that you don’t only communicate with words but also with acts. Even better, according to some specialists 56 % of the messages we want to send are delivered with gestures that can say a lot about our personality. Paying attention to your body language is therefore crucial. A firm hand shake and a real smile are examples of a good body language communication. Once you crossed the hand shake step, you have to adopt the position of a natural and confident person and at the same time be calm and maintain an eye contact with the person you are speaking to. Basically you need to remember to make sure your haircut, your nails and outfit are neat.

Know about everything that is on your CV

It is quite common for a candidate to not know exactly what is on the CV and give evasive answers when the recruiter wants more information about the person standing in front of him. Obviously it will reduce the chances of having a successful interview especially when you are facing a person perspective person. It is a clear that the way you talk about your experience and skills shouldn’t be taken lightly. The best way to be successful is to practice telling your CV outloud and talk about your experience with the help of some examples. You should be able to explain every part of the CV. Actually there are a lot of things that could make the employer wants to hire. However those elements still remain crucial.

If most of the time in Africa, foreign multinationals are leaders of the African market, this last years we have been more and more witnessing the appearance of African companies determined to not let the Western multinationals take over. Those companies have been able to beautifully settle everywhere in Africa and in some regions of the world.

The Nigerian man Aiko Dangote is a good example of a succes story. At the top of a company named after him, he has a  $3 billion US dollars revenue per year. With his branch Dangote cement he is gradually expanding in Africa Sub-Saharan Countries. In 2015, his cement production was to cross the 46 millions tonnes of cement which made him reach number 6 in the worldwide cement business. Allowing him to compete with large western companies like the French Lafarge, the Swiss Holcim and the German Heidelberg Cement.

The Beninese Samuel Dossou- Awore, President of the group Petrolin who managed to successfully expand his market area in the whole continent and in Middle East ought to be held up as an example as well. In Nigeria, this gigantic oil-producer has won a major tender on the oil block OLM 34, crushing by far some international multinationals.

The Egyptian group Orascom is a testimony of the breakthrough of African multinationals abroad. Despise the competition, they managed to admirally settle in the cement business, telecommunications and television in countries like Irak, Nigeria and Pakistan. As proof, since 2015 they ranked as a majority shareholder of the international television channel Euronews based in Lyon, France.

The list is far from being exhaustive since we have other existing African multinationals that are coming out and growing in oil drilling ( Sonatrach in Algeria, Sonangol in Angola, trading (Salan and Bidvest in South Africa), energy (Estom, Sasol in South Africa) and mobile (MTN groups in South Africa).

All those international multinationals are the proud of Africa because they successfully managed to have important revenues. Their achievements are the result of an intensive work in Africa and in other regions of the world for the development of the African continent. Which goes to show that Africa is being more and more aware of its economic potential which needs to be promoted…

It is undenial now. It goes without saying that what is commonly known as soft skills are getting recruiters very excited. Soft skills refers to the attitude of the candidate as opposed to hard skills which are about technical skills.

Recruiters have given so much importance to this type of skill in comparison to technical skills and degrees that it is on its way to break down all the traditional perception of recruitment. Right now, recruiters are more and more relying on soft skills to do their hiring. However it would be over exaggeratd to solely depend on this trend because technical skills are still the basis of recruitment. It would be difficult to see someone get hired based only on his attitude with no consideration given to his technical skills.

Either way, soft skills have became a determining criteria in the hiring process for some years now.  Thus, a survey showed that 62% of recruiters could hire a candidate based mostly on his soft skills.

This reality is even more true in digital marketing. In that field , 72% of recruiters emphasize on soft skills when hiring a candidate. But what about the ways recruiters could spot the soft skills of the candidate?

Soft skills are, actually,noticeable in the CV of the candidates but recruiters can only find out about them during an interview. For that reason, interviews whether they are done in person or via video constitute a good way for recruiters to have a clear idea about the psychological skills of the candidate and therefore find the best ones. Thus, the goal of an interview is to find out about the attributes the worker possesses that would make him be a co-worker capable of progressing in the work environment of the company.

This last few years, soft skills have been so popular among recruiters that some human ressources professionals got to the points of saying that they have caught up with hard skills.

Nowadays, the quality recruiters are the most looking for are listening skills (62% of surveyed people), independence (58%) and teamwork (58%). Managers also expect a certain reliability in addition to the 3 previous ones.

It is thus crucial for job seekers to not only rely on their technical skills. Quite to the contrary they should fully develop their soft skills.

Entrepreneurship is rightfully seen as the only way, really, to overcome the alarming issue of unemployment especially now with lots of young people and African people in particular who are constantly worried about losing their jobs. This situation is no longer a theory but a reality without a doubt. The majority of the African countries are in fact viewing entrepreneurship as the key to economic growth. It is still generating high returns for business owners. In addition to that, experts believe that it actually possess great undeveloped potential that could lead the continent to its next  stage of development. However, are we all made for entrepreneurship or what at least are the qualities that we need to become a great businessman? We will try to answer that question.

Determination…

Managing its own business requires real efforts and real sacrifices. That is the reason why, one of the essential secrets to a successful entrepreneurship is determination. It is vital in the sense that many obstacles that the entrepreneurs will have to overcome represent on their own a reason for them to give up or get discouraged. Therefore the entrepreneur must show determination in all his projects. Once he made the decision to create his own company he must have a clear idea of his goals and how he will achieve them. He must be able to turn an obstacle into an opportunity because someone who is determined will never find a reason not to move forward.

Accepting the fact that you won’t get profit at first…

If some very recent businesses call it a quite most of the time,it’s due to the fact it is not that easy in the beginnings. The clients will not be lining up right away and you could have some loans to pay back. The main word to go through that situation would be patience. Therefore the entrepreneur should not put his focus on profits at the beginning. He must rely on some savings because he will not necessarily make money at first. He must have in mind that even if the beginnings are never easy, at some point the money will follow if he is determined and managed to have enough clients for his business.

Having a creative mind…

Being original by avoiding to get stuck in the never ending repetitions of what everybody else is doing is an essential secret for a business owner who wants to last. It is what Maurice Zeldman says here “ the business that will survive tomorrow is the one that promote creativity today”. Because of that, the entrepreneur must have a bit of creativity so he can find some new ideas that would help uplift the business. It will help him get ahead of the competition, find unexploited markets or attract new clientele.

It is common for recruiters to ask unusual questions to the candidates as a way to tickle their brains or just have an idea of just how quick-witted they are. Those wierd questions that some employers love asking can sometimes unsettle some candidates who did not see them coming. Unfortunately in this game nothing is off limits when it comes to using the good techniques that could help find the best profiles for the job. As a candidate you must be prepared for the unusual questions. Let’s review the most frequently asked ones.

Tell me about yourself…

This vague question is a classic during a job interview. It seems easy but it is unsettling at the same time because of how nosy it actually is. The goal is not to only find out about the real person who is behind the candidate but also test your rebound abilities.

It is clearly impossible to give a good answer. However, the candidate should avoid giving long answers. Thus, after introducing yourself, don’t be afraid to ask the person yo are speaking to, if he wants you to elaborate on a certain detail. The rest of your speech will depend on the answer you will get from them. It will allow you to be more on point.

Tell us about your strength and weakness…

People who have been at job interviews can’t deny having once been asked that question that is another classic, frequently asked questions. A lot of candidates actually get prepared in advance for that one by listing their strengths and weaknesses. The answers,lots of candidates usually give, are not very convincing or worse demonstrate a lack of humility.

The default answer used by many candidates is “ I am too much of a perfectionist”, clearly it is a sad way of turning a strength into a weakness. But really, is it necessary to lie especially when they don’t believe you?

If really you are, let’s say, not really organized, there is nothing wrong with mentioning it, as long as you are showing that you want to work on that. The only mistake you should avoid at any coast would be to talk about a weakness that has a direct impact on your work. It is actually common sense.