Straight out of college I landed a Job with a Tech company where I worked for the next 5years of my professional career. It was a great run and I will say I definitely enjoyed working with the team I was surrounded with. My initial role was as an entry-level SEO specialist and after a year and a half, I found myself leading the SEO team.
For the past five years, I had been working there, but this year, I found myself dying to break into an agency that will give me the chance to own my skill set and work on new & exciting projects. After many successful campaigns and taking on new roles in growth and marketing within the same company, it was time to say goodbye. It was quite unfortunate that around the same period I was leaving, Coronavirus had hit hard and people were losing jobs all over the place, lockdown had been initiated and I kept wondering to myself, what next?! I began my search for a new company where I could continue my career and be challenged in doing new things and working on new exciting projects. I sent out notifications on LinkedIn and other job-seeking platforms looking for a digital marketing company to work with, I had quite a number of interviews with different companies but most of the time I got rejected because I was not living in the country, even though these were remote roles. I never felt bad anytime this happened, but instead, I kept on sending out Cvs every morning before I began working. It was a routine I had started since my job-seeking began. I made it a thing to always send out CVs to at least 10 companies before I start work and also check my emails. I was looking for a remote opportunity so most of the companies I was targeting were out of Ghana. Taking it one day at a time, any response from a company was opened with joy, interviews were booked, and then boom, you get a response you did not look forward to. This went on for a month, and one day my brother shared a post with me on Twitter. He saw a job post by QodeHub looking for an SEO content writer and he knew this was something I could do and told me I would get the job. I really had a boost of confidence when he said that and I also knew deep down once I saw the criteria for applicants that I would land the job.
I felt quite confident and went ahead to do some research on QodeHub. I was impressed with what I saw, from the workspace to the website and team members, this looked like a place I could work and gel with a team of young people. I went straight ahead to apply for the position and I had a response that very same day letting me know the team had received my application.
The following day, I received a follow-up email notifying me that I had gone through to the next stage of the recruitment process and had to fill out an assessment form. I did just that and replied to the email, two days later I received an email stating that I had not filled out the first half of the form that required all the information about myself and skillset. I was dumbfounded and a little shook because I actually wanted to land this job and this seemed to be an issue that could hinder my application process.
Thankfully, God is so good, the lady I was interacting with: “Melissa” gave me another chance to fill out the application and send it in again. After all the back and forth, I was finally invited for an interview session with the Digital Marketing Lead and Head Of Human Resource. The meeting was held via Zoom due to the Coronavirus situation. Two days later, I found myself on my couch about to start my interview session with Enam, Team Lead for Digital Marketing, and Melissa, Head of Human Resource. I think I did well and answered most of the questions confidently. Initially, I was a bit jittery but felt comfortable after a while, and it was smooth sailing afterward. This was the most authentic interview I have experienced in my career. The entire process from start to end, the tasks assigned to you prior to being selected test your skill set to see if you are suitable for the position, and it was fun working on them.
After my interview session, I had to await feedback, which is normal, so the waiting game began. The interview was on the 26th of May 2020, I waited for a week after which I decided to follow up and see what was going on since I did not receive any email. I could not believe they chose to go with someone else so I had to send an email to make sure of that. I followed up with Melissa who I was in contact with most of the time and she replied the following morning asking if I could get on a quick call with her to discuss the role further. You should see the joy on my face after waiting for a week with no response.
I obliged and had a call later on in the day, after which the job description was sent over to me to review along with the salary which I reviewed and agreed on. Eight days later, I received a final email from Melissa offering me the role. I was so glad and had the biggest smile on my face. I had finally landed a job after a month of searching amidst the Coronavirus Pandemic.
I shared the news with my brother and he said “I told you, bro, go spoil there” I laughed and said thanks. We spoke for a while and I took the rest of the day off to relax after such great news.
Over the weekend I received an official email, welcoming me to the QodeHub family and asking me to start work on the 15th of June. The onboarding process was set up and I was scheduled to meet the Digital marketing team via Zoom.
This was the best onboarding process I have experienced, the team was so welcoming and everyone made me feel welcome.
I would like to end here by saying if you are out there looking for a new job or still looking forward to landing your first, don’t give up. Keep sending out those CVs, never be let down by rejection. The more you are rejected the more you apply and don’t forget to Pray cause I also did that a lot throughout this whole process.
Landing a job during a global pandemic when people were losing their jobs felt impossible but hey, here I am working with a talented team of young individuals and an awesome team lead that gets the best out of everyone and I am always excited to wake up and work with my new teammates.