Jonathan will defeat Buhari, says Mimiko

Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, has said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) in next year’s election, saying APC is only deceiving Nigerians.
This is just as he said the APC should convince Nigerians on its change slogan, noting that its top shots, by their actions, are anti-democratic elements.
Speaking in Ado-Ekiti on Friday when he visited his Ekiti counterpart, Mr Ayo Fayose, the governor wondered whether APC wanted Nigeria to change from democracy to dictatorship.
He also exuded confidence that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would win convincingly in the South-West.
“We want APC leaders to explain to Nigerians the change they shout all over. Are they saying the country should change from democracy to dictatorship? This is necessary because their leaders, by their actions, have not shown that they are democratic elements.
“One can see that they are already afraid and panic has set in the way they act now,” he said.
On the chances of the PDP in the coming general elections, Mimiko said the party understood the sophistication of elections and the issues involved.
“In the 2011 elections, when President Goodluck Jonathan did not have any governor in the South-West, he won in five of the states. Now that he has more states and subsequent elections in Ondo and Ekiti have shown that the winning streak is continuing, there is not going to be any problem.
“In places like Oyo, Ogun and Lagos, the tide is changing in favour of PDP. Political jobbers failed to divide us in Lagos and they are panicking already.
“I can say it without mincing words that the APC is anxious in the South-West and all their lies will not be able to save them from electoral defeat,” he said.
Fayose, who chipped in briefly, said the election would surely return President Jonathan back to office.


                                                                                                            SunNewsonline

12 Viruses in your CV

                                                                           HR Talk

                                                                            with

                                                                 

                                                                 Moruf Kolawole Nasir

(Experienced HR professional)

In my previous article I Identified 10 silly mistakes job seekers make in the process of applying for jobs. This edition covers the second part of the article-Silly Mistakes in CVs, although I choose to title it “12 VIRUSES IN YOUR CV”
Errors/mistakes in CVs is also an area which has been widely written on, but most of the articles are filled with conflicting dos and don’ts thus putting job seekers in more confusion. We will attempt to identify some likely ‘dents’ in most job seekers CVs.

1.     Copy & Paste Syndrome: Almost all of us are guilty of this chei? I was going through the CV of an applicant for a driver’s job few months ago, the young man can neither read nor write (because he could not fill a form given to him) yet his hobbies are reading and writing. In another case, a very smart looking fresh graduate was referred to me, I asked him questions relating to his course of study he did not do well until I addressed him as Economics graduate when he snapped in to ‘correct’ me that he studied business administration not Economics, I had no choice but to refer him to the CV he gave me. Oh! He exclaimed, “I am sorry I used my friend’s CV, I forgot to change the course of study”. Many job seekers inject their CVs with this kind of virus. Most times your person and background differ from the person whose CV you are adopting.

2.     Unnecessary information: Fresh graduates are mostly guilty of this. Just to make sure their CV is ‘full’, they add viruses to it. Who says one page of A4 CV cannot do better than two pages? What business of the recruiter is your home town or your religious denomination? He will find out those if he needs them before hiring you. God help you if you are from Aluu community (you put that in your CV) and the hiring manager happened to be related to one of the victims of ‘Aluu 4’.

3.     The‘Jokey’ email address: Yeah! The content of your email address matters. Trust me, nobody will be comfortable sending interview invitation to beerlover@yahoo.comor hotlips@gmail.comfor the position that requires serious minded people, and most positions do. Check if your email address qualifies for ‘jockey’ one and rid your CV of that virus.

4.     Incorrect/Insufficient Personal/Contact Details: While going through some CVs for the post of ICT manager many months ago, I saw a very good CV (a candidate with the required experience and Skills for the job), I went back to the top of the CV to invite him for interview, lo and behold! his contact information is missing. Other job seekers carelessly miss a letter or sign in their email addresses. While yet another set omit a number or mix numbers up in their contact phone numbers. All these are bottle necks to invitations for interviews.

5.     Design and format:  I once saw a CV so nicely design that I stopped for a while to look at the aesthetic value of the CV. Guess what? The aesthetics drew my attention away from the content of the CV and as such the owner missed the opportunity of having the content of his CV assessed.  Similarly, some CVs are badly formatted that one wonders if they were not actually designed to put the recruiter off. These are viruses to CVs.

6.     Telling Lies in your CV: It is unfortunate that the competition in the labour market makes most job seeker stoop so low to the extent of putting false information in their CVs, unfortunately for them, experienced HR professionals are good at identifying the lies and keeping such CVs to where they belong.

7.     Writing a Novel as CV: The longest CV I have seen is 17 pages for the post of operations manager, isn’t that amazing? He was actually invited for interview to come and prove that he is not wasteful. And that was the question he battled with all through. Bottom line, no matter the number of your accomplishments if you can’t sum it up in two to three pages, it becomes a minus to your CV. Some writers are even of the opinion that two pages is the maximum for experienced applicants while one page is enough for Fresh graduates.


8.     Using Photo: I sometimes wonder who started the photo thing in Nigeria. In case you don’t know, printing CVs with pictures consumes more printer ink than CV without pictures. Apart from this, instead of judging the content of your CV the recruiter’s attention is shifted to the object in the CV (your picture) and that jeopardizes the chances of fair assessment of your CV. This may be the norm in Far East and Europe, but sorry it doesn’t apply to us here, and when recruiters need your picture, they SPECIFICALLY request for it. So kick that virus out of your CV.

9.     Spelling Mistakes, Typos and Grammatical Errors: How will you feel if you are looking through a CV and come across “I have had sex jobs so far…” instead of six jobs so far?  The Virus (Spelling mistake, Typos and grammatical errors) has been over flogged, so no point dueling much on it. The good news is, hiring managers are not grammarians and as such they are not after your spelling mistakes, typographic or grammatical errors. It becomes an issue, and a serious one at that, if the flaws are visible enough to be noticed.

10.  Leaving out Information or Creating Gap:  I may not blame you for not being employed, for a while after graduating from the university etc; I will only see you as a bad hire if the vacuum shows in your CV without you accounting for it productively. So if you have that in your CV then it is a Virus, kick it out or make productive account of it.

11.  Duties instead of Accomplishments:    Highlighting the duties of the job you  were/are doing is a waste of space. Rather than saying what your duties were/are, why not state what you were/are able to accomplish while performing those duties.

12.  Irrelevant Experience: In as much as we cannot justifiably fault recruiters decision to hire applicants with work experience, Job seekers should not leverage on that to give irrelevant work experience. Two weeks of relevant work experience is more valuable to a prospective employer than two years of shelves stacking (except you are applying to work in a book shop or library). Rather than give irrelevant work experience while not identify the aspect of what you’ve got that tallies with your target job.
 Don't forget to leave your comments and questions in the comment box or send them to shadedreflects@gmail.com

Buhari gets 44.5 million naira campaign fund from supporters

By Nasir Nafisat 

The adoption of Obama's style of raising fund for campaining adopted by APC presidential flag bearer, General Buhari seems to be yielding positive fruit, as he said that his supporters have contributed the sum of 44.5 million Naira to help in his campaign against 2015 election.

General Muhammadu Buhari says Nigerians have been contributing the sum of 100 Naira each for his presidential campaign for the 2015 general elections, insisting that he is not breaking any law as regards the funding.
General Buhari told a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday that he had adopted the approach by US President Barack Obama, when he asked his supporters to contribute towards his campaign.
He said that the crowdfunding project had so far realised the sum of 44.5 million Naira through direct deposit and sale of donation cards
The APC flag bearer had told supporters while delivering a speech on the day of the presidential primary election that he had no money to lobby or gratify any one, asking for their support.
The funds so far raised, according to him, showed the kind of support that he had received from Nigerians.
The former military Head of State, General Buhari, will on February 14 vie for the presidential seat with the incumbent President and flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan.