Job opportunities in Nigeria’s SMEs

Today’s article is based on a LinkedIn message I received from a friend a few weeks ago, just before the last week’s presidential elections. The message is represented here: “Good morning Segun, please get in touch on this mobile with respect to a recruitment assignment.”

Such messages only come my way when there is a real need that requires my attention. To be brief, the message was from a potential client that had a recruitment need that required an urgent attention, even while election tension was in the air.

The uniqueness of the message is that the client was not any of the big names in the economy or client of a blue-chip/multinational company. The client was an SME, meaning small and medium enterprise.

Usually SMEs are described as start-ups – those that are not yet in the league of well-established businesses. Many may choose to call them one-man-businesses. Nonetheless, the Central Bank of Nigeria thinks about them otherwise. The CBN defines SMEs by their asset base and number of staff employed. The criteria are asset base of between N5 million and N500 million and a staff strength of 20 to 300 employees.

Going by the CBN definition, there are numerous SMEs as well as Micro Enterprises in Nigeria, whose asset base and number of employees are lower that the CBN standard thresholds. Examples are numerous, ranging from supermarkets, pharmacy stores, textile dealers, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, Internet cafés, computer business centres, to consulting firms. The list is endless.

SMEs and MEs operate through people and not machines. Hence, there are a load of job opportunities that abound there. Such job vacancies are even more in numbers today than the blue-chip vacancies can boast. What are the facts to prove this?

According to a 2010 National MSME Collaborative Survey conducted by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics/Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria, 17,284,671 MSMEs exist in Nigeria creating 32,414,884 jobs. Wow! This statistics is exciting if you think about it. Job sites and offline newspapers are a testament to these facts as well.

My client was planning to initiate a recruitment process even in the midst of election tension and he needed a professional help. Why? The client needed to make more money; and to do so, he needed qualified employees.

He had been recruiting via an informal network but suddenly realised that the option was failing him in terms of results and quality. See my point now? Job vacancies do abound in MEs and SMEs.

Job vacancies are on the increase in SMEs than in blue-chip/multinational companies

As a job seeker, think SMEs and MEs. The unfortunate reality is that many job seekers want to work in blue-chip firms. So, they often get frustrated as the vacancies are very few in those organisations compared to what is available in SMEs and MEs. So, I admonish job seekers to be flexible, considering opportunities in SMEs. They should also be ready to give it their best to work there rather than waste away waiting for ‘dream jobs’ in blue-chip companies. This may not come as expected, so try a change of job search strategy.

As a job seeker, you need to be prepared to grab your chance to get a job in an SME. To achieve that feat, you need to acquire that quality touch required to get that job and help organisations make more profit. Improve on your employability skills, get technologically-savvy and acquire the basic composite skills and personal attributes that will give you the capacity to function adequately in the workplace. Possessing the requisite skills to function in the workplace is a demonstration of your market-readiness to potential SME employers.

Have a re-think to take the SME work experience career path and get real work-learning to show for it. You have it on your CV that you are a problem-solver, why not prove it first in an SME while you wait for a blue-chip company comes around? Most SME job opportunities come disguised in unstructured environments. This is what most job seekers do not want to be part of. They love structured work environments so much that they forget that every large organisation started in an unstructured manner. They want the pay and glory but do not want to pay the price and share the pains.

Get in the trenches of SME career route and get paid for it in the future by a blue-chip organisation.

In summary, while you await a job miracle in the New Nigeria that is here already, you need to think SMEs and MEs in your job search strategy.

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