L-R: Mr Olapado Akinloye, Host/Executive Director, FasTrack Academy presenting a plaque to Otunba Odeyeyiwa Kazeem, GMD/CEO, Repton Group and Keynote Speaker, with a participant (middle) watching, during the 2024 FasTrack Academy Lagos Career Fair in Lagos recently.
Otunba Odeyeyiwa Kazeem Olayemi, GMD/CEO of Repton Group has said that achieving career advancement requires passion, focus, diligence, acquisition of special skills, positioning and resilience.
Otunba Odeyeyiwa made the disclosure at the recent Lagos Career Fair 2024 where he was the Keynote Speaker.
The Repton Group CEO said these career success basics especially become imperative because job-seekers are now faced with stiffer competition from millions of other job-seekers in today’s expanded job market, following the digital technology explosion that has made the world a global village by dismantling geographical boundaries, globalising competition and widening the scope of career opportunities.
He added that apart from job-seekers, workers too are in constant local and global competition in the workplace with a lot of prospective employees, ambitious subordinates, determined peers and even toxic or insecure bosses, all seeking the brass ring of career success.
In Otunba Odeyeyiwa’s words, “You need to sharpen your employability skills, strategically position yourself and be resilient to be able to stay ahead of competition and achieve accelerated career advancement.”
The CEO of Repton Group, a conglomerate that clinched 2023 National Largest Distributor of Dangote Cement Award explained that employability skills refer to a set of skills, especially personal attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen careers. According to him, “They are the skills that employers value more in prospective and existing employees as specialist or technical skills associated with different roles are less important for business success.”
Otunba Odeyeyiwa explained that some of these skills are effective communication skills, interpersonal skills, personal development/learning, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, problem-solving/analytical skills, and creativity and innovation. He said others are planning and organisation, self-management, ethical awareness, leadership skills, CV and cover letter writing skills, and job interview skills.
According to the CEO, “As a job-seeker or worker, you need to build your personal brand and then position yourself as a good brand for recognition and advancement opportunities and growth.” Advising job-seekers on self-positioning, he said job-seekers should be creative in their job-search efforts by concentrating more on unsolicited job application strategy where they will often be the only candidates being interviewed rather than the solicited application approach of merely responding to vacancy adverts that thousands or millions of other job-seekers are also applying for.
Otunba Odeyeyiwa added that strategic self-positioning for career success can be achieved through self-marketing, building personal reputation, requesting additional work in the workplace, having a mentor, maintaining cordial relationships with your boss, strong online presence, etc.
Emphasising the importance of resilience to career success, Odeyeyiwa said: “Development of employability and technical skills as well as employment of strategic positioning may still not quickly guarantee career success in some instances as expected. This may lead to the boundary of your patience being overstretched. One potent tool you need to survive such a situation is resilience, the mentality of a winner.”
