"I can now interact better with people thanks to the training"- Mary Jane Ihejirika

Mary Jane graduated from the University of Benin where she studied History and International Studies. She heard about the training through a friend whose recommendation she felt she could trust. At that time she had just completed her National Youth Service and was living with her parents. Building her skills was important to her at that time even while depending on her parents financially because she was unemployed. A typical day for her while she was job searching, was to wake up early in the morning, search for openings on the internet and talk to people.

Before going for service, Mary Jane worked as an Office Assistant and Sales Executive. She saw the training as an opportunity to enhance her soft skills and also she saw WAVE differently from other organizations because of the proper orientation she got at the beginning of the program.

Mary Jane described her training experience as great, although getting to the location of the training centre was a difficult task for her because of the traffic. She enjoyed all her classes especially the Communication class because it was interactive. A part of the training that Mary Jane misses is the group assignments and tasks because of their interactive nature.

She had her job shadow at the WAVE office where she worked in the Career Services department and her job role included speaking to different people, getting information from them and documenting it. She enjoyed her job shadow because she learned phone call etiquette and how to manage customers and also practiced her hospitality skills.

After her job shadow, she attended a couple of interviews and went on to get a job as a Customer Care Agent in a jewelry store in Lagos (Azarai Jewelers) and has been on the job for 10 months.
She said what she loves about her job is that using communication, problem-solving and hospitality skills she learned at WAVE, she is able to interact with customers, help them make choices and pacify disgruntled customers.

Mary Jane's dream job is to be an entertainer and a Red Cross Aid worker. She advises job seekers to be patient, not make the mistake of taking just any job and ensuring they are prepared at all times for opportunities.

For her, WAVE was not just any other training, 'I used to have a certain mindset that you need only things like connection, a higher education degree and years of experience to get a job, but that has changed after WAVE, the training built me mentally and socially and I have learned to communicate with and tolerate all kinds of people.''