Impact Story: Gift Silas.
Gift Silas had always aspired to be in the hospitality and food industry. A 24-year-old SSCE holder, it was this love for knowledge about taking and catering to people that led him to seek jobs in local restaurants( what some may call bukas).
However, the experience from there wasn't as thorough and in-depth for someone whose dream was to own a classy lounge. He reasoned that he would never be able to break even into the hospitality industry if he didn't have training that was independent of such restaurant.
Shortly after making this decision, he heard about the WAVE training through a friend and decided to give it a try majorly because he expected that training at WAVE would give him the necessary skills needed for a job in his chosen industry. He describes the training experience as one that was not easy at all. The major tasks he remembers being told to do was going on the streets to market paper bags which he had created and also planning meals with his other group members for his other trainees on a somewhat low budget.
According to him, those tasks in addition to skills like managing expectations and communicating effectively, have helped him in all the jobs he has had post WAVE. Some of which include the job shadow experience as a waiter at Nok by Alara and AngleVilla Restaurant.
He says these skills helped him not just retain his position, but the skill of communication particularly helped his income to be transformed. Reason being before WAVE, he was earning less than thirty-five thousand naira but after training at WAVE where he was equipped with the skill of salary negotiation and effective communication, he saw his salary move to above forty-five thousand naira.
He describes his experience working at AngleVilla as one that was filled with challenges that helped build him up, one of which was working under pressure. This meant that even though he was a shy person, his job as a waiter required him to learn how to be more confident especially when attending to large groups of people at events. Though he worked at Angle Villa for two years and four months, it was due to the good service he had given a past client there, that opened the way for his new job at Circa Restaurant. This past client happened to be the manager of his new job and was so impressed with his service that he ensured that Gift didn't go through the strenuous job-seeking process but instead started work almost a week after leaving Angle Villa.
His advice to job seekers is to put more efforts and when they finally get the job, they should learn to be submissive to the job and most importantly have integrity.
No comments