Work Mode with Brown Uzoukwu: Much Ado About Federal Jobs

Guy: mummy! Guess what? I have just landed my dream job. I just got an offer letter and was asked to resume on Monday.
Mum: are you serious? Praise God. The lord is good. So where exactly is the place?
Guy: yeah, Bionics Ltd, it is an app development and cyber security company.
Mum: (sighs) which one is Bionics ltd? One-Man business? Anyway, thank God. It is better than staying at home. Let’s be managing that one until God answers our prayer. I heard that the Federal Road Safety Commission is recruiting. Hope you applied?

***
Quite a number of job seekers can relate with the above conversation. I really don’t know how to describe it, but there is this THING we have about federal jobs which I am quite sure is not borne out of our love for public service.

Some people are willing to do anything just to secure a federal job (public/civil service). People write me and ask me to help them secure a placement at any federal opening and I always tell them I don’t offer recruitment services for the federal or state government. A lot of desperate and unsuspecting job seekers have become prey to a lot of scammers parading as recruitment agents. It beats my imagination how someone will be willing to part with as much as 300,000 to 500,000 Naira in order to secure a federal job? Some of our parents do not even think you have gotten a job unless your place work has Ministry, Commission, Agency attached to its name.
What exactly is it job seekers and federal jobs?
One of my readers called me some time ago to share her testimony with me. In her own words, she said “Mr. Brown, thank God for me o. I just got a federal job. You know what that means? I am going to have a job for the next 32 years of my life.”

That brings me to my first thought about federal jobs. Top most on the list of reasons people gravitate towards government jobs is what they describe as guaranteed job security. But I think it is more about the security and not the job. If not, explain to me how an individual who was clamoring for a job in Central Bank of Nigeria, will suddenly turn to Federal Road Safety commission if the CBN pursuit does not work out. The next time you meet the person, he has suddenly decided to become a prison warder or an INEC staff. When it comes to a federal job, people don’t seem to have any career choice. The deciding factor is the supposed security that comes with the job irrespective of which ministry, parastatal or agency it is.

I do not really blame them. In a country where people are on a pay roll for practically doing nothing, what do you expect? People naturally do not like to be accountable. Nobody wants to assume responsibility. That is why people will pay anything to work in a place where their pay cheque or security is not determined by their level of productivity. But is it really worth dying for?
I mean, who said that people don’t have job security in the private sector. It all depends on what your definition of job security is. There are persons who can never be without jobs because they have learnt how to produce results. That is what the private sector is all about. Results.

This is what most young career persons are scared off and that is why you see over half a million people go for the immigration jamboree that led to loss of lives.
Secondly, I also have the notion that our school system contributes to this insatiable appetite of job seekers for federal jobs. Most of the students are not really prepared to take up challenges in the society and create opportunities and solutions. Majority are wired for the government job kind of thing. There is no mindset of production or value optimization. It is just about salary, salary and nothing but salary. This remains the reason why our public sector is not thriving as it should.
Sometimes when I visit some public offices and see the quality of their human resources, I wonder how some people managed to get the job in the first place.
I don’t have any problem with the federal jobs or the public sector, neither am I against anyone seeking to work for the government. However, I don’t see any reason for the obsession. People are practically obsessed with these government jobs.
It is very evident in the way we mount pressure on the government to create more jobs. How much jobs are we really expecting the government to create. How many of us can they employ? Are we expecting them to do that by creating more ministries or agencies that does relatively nothing but have salaries allocated to them in the budget. I don’t understand. Unemployment level will always remain high whenever people are looking on the side of the government for jobs. Even In developed countries that has a well functional and efficient public service, the private sector is still the highest employer of labour.

Jobs are created by the private sector. What good governments do is to produce enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. A job is a job anywhere. If we have job seekers that think more of contribution and less of consumption, the pressure we mount on the federal jobs will drastically reduce and alternatively, we can be able to identify more opportunities and get ourselves to be productive.

True security does not come from someone else, it comes from within. Some people will always feel and become insecure no matter the hedge you construct around them. Like I said, there are some people that are not scared of losing their jobs today because they know that they will get another one.
The best form of job security is derived from giving yourself to becoming a solution provider, a problem solver, a change agent and a firm believer of execution.
Young career persons should not be scared of the private sector. It is a rewarding sector that rewards your excellence and hard work irrespective of your age or federal character. In the private sector, promotion is not based on length of service. It is the quality of your service and the results you generate that gets you climbing the corporate ladder at your own pace.
The private sector is challenging, it is fun, it is engaging and it is rewarding. There is space for you to achieve your dreams no matter how big they are. Prepare yourself to work. Develop expertise and experience. Build an excellence culture and the security of your job will be the least of your worries.

Have a great day.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime