Are you a graduate? And you are reading this? Thank God for your life. The Gregorian calendar year 2019 is rolling to an end. Everybody is thanking God for keeping them alive. You are wondering why it was so difficult for you to achieve your dreams. I know, as a graduate who has completed your service year to the fatherland, you struggled throughout 2019 to get a job so that you can become a man or woman of your own dream, but 16 days to the end of the last month in the year, you keep wondering what happened. You keep asking why you are still on the same spot. You feel worthless? The phrasal question who education epp is already getting at you? 2019 is already winding down. Don’t you think it is high time you started planning for 2020? It is another 365 days of 52 weeks and 12 months. It is another opportunity to fulfill your dream. It is a new canvas on which you could beautifully craft the images of your dream. However, achieving your goals is a job on its own. This is regardless of what you seek to become. As we look forward to 2020, would you please take a look at what you did not do right in 2019 and strive to make a difference? If you are interested, please tag along.
# Change your strategy and tactics. Strategy is a broad plan of action aimed at achieving a goal while tactics refer to the means for achieving the goals. In 2019, do you have a strategy at all? As said earlier, achieving your goals is a job on its own. In 2020, divide the whole year into four quarters of 3 months and state your plan and how you want to go about it from January to March. Are you applying for a scholarship for a higher degree? Are you attending trainings? Are you acquiring new skills? Are you making more connections? Whatever you need to do, please strategize. It will go a long way to ensure you have a path you follow and you can evaluate.
#Be more Deliberate. Reaching your goals is more of personal deliberateness than any other thing. In 2020, be more deliberate about your plans, strategies and tactics. As a graduate, you have to choose what you do, where you go and how you spend your meagre resources. Are you asking if you have resources? Yes. You do. The least, and most important of your resources, is your time. Volunteer. Attend programmes. Freelance. Let this be deliberate and contribute to your dream. In the new year, do things deliberately.
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#Improve your webinality. In 2020, one area you have to check as a graduate is your web presence. I think you should understand that the recruitment landscape is changing every day. Companies now recruit, check applicants’ background and interest via social media handles. This is webinality . This is a term coined by erudite Nigerian born US based Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe to describe how you use the social media to tell the world the talents you have and the works of your hands. In the new year, pledge to focus more on displaying what you could do, what you are doing and your professional achievements. Make it a year of focusing on building your online persona.
#Start from somewhere. You are a graduate and looking for a job? You insist that unless you get that dream job paying the six figures annual pay, there is no show. It is understandable. After all, you spent a whole 4years in the university to get trained for the dream jobs. Yet, interviews after interviews, you are never called upon. Wait! It is time for you to start considering what is available. It has been said that such move would not diminish you. Rather, it would afford you the opportunity to earn something that could fund your ways to your whatever you seek to do. It could enable you to save for higher degrees or application for foreign scholarships. In 2020, give a chance to that job that you think lowly of. It may assist to move on.
#Make a Commitment to Skill Up. In 2020, it is imperative to skill up. Many Nigerian graduates do not have skills that may make them relevant and sought after by employers. This explains why you need to skill up. As 2019 winds down, you must audit your skills with a plan to get skilled up in 2020. If you discover any gap, you have to get trained especially on digital skills. Opportunities to tune up your skills abound both online and offline. However, be strategic about your search for skills. Ensure those you seek align with your areas of interest. Plug the skill gap you have.
#Be more Open to Opportunities. One of the major issues with Nigerian graduates is their inability to see opportunities especially in their immediate environment. They usually look for big opportunities and breakthroughs neglecting the little ones that could have big impact over time. So, in 2020, I urge you to attune your binoculars to see opportunities that abound in your environment. One of such areas of opportunities is agriculture. I have been told that there are some aspects of it that does not require any capital to start off but with a high returns on the little investments made.
As 2019 gradually bids humanity bye, it is imperative to plan ahead so as to reap the fruits of labour sowed. May the approaching new year yield more opportunities.