How I got rejected by a company and later worked with them for 1 year
It was Q1 of 2020, I (& many others) had just been laid off at Andela, the SARS Covid-19 was at its peak, causing a lot of people to lose their jobs, businesses to shut down & even countries going on full lockdown. I couldn’t have been more uncertain of getting another job anytime soon.
Fast forward a month later, after so many applications, ghosting & rejections from companies, I found a job on Indeed which caught my eye.
Like the unemployed, i-really-need-a-job 🥺 developer I was, I applied and what do you know! Barely a week after my application, the rejection mail came in (nothing new here 😏)
Undeterred, I moved on but as fate would have it, I got a call from a very good friend of mine. He wanted to know if I was interested in taking a gig from company his flatmate works for. I said yes (go figure 🙄) so he connected me with his flatmate who in-turn, connected (referred) me with his company’s CTO.
The mail from the CTO came in before I could type my next console.log.
No Hackerrank challenge, no take-home technical assessment. Just a straight offer! It was then that I truly realised that
when someone powerful speaks on your behalf, protocols are broken, “due processes” are discarded, the power of network effects start to work for you. “We don’t employ/engage with people from this region” becomes a fallacy. New roles that have never existed within an organization will be created for you, because someone spoke on your behalf!
I accepted the offer (duh), then went on to single-handedly build what is now cosi-group.com, a fully functional multi-language website, with an integrated booking engine for room reservations, a job board that’s actively being used to recruit new hires & a micro blog, all under two months.
After completing this project, I got really good feedback which caused my contract to be extended. I transitioned to working on internal product for the company where I learned a lot & also made new friends.
But as with all things that has a beginning, must come to an end. I left COSI this year to take on a bigger challenge. One, that I’m very excited about.
I really do hope sharing this story inspires someone out there who might have been knocking on seemingly closed doors. Sometimes it’s just easier when someone speaks on your behalf but you better be good at your craft!
This article was inspired by Prosper Otemuyiwa’s Who’s speaking on your behalf?
Alexa! Speak on my behalf!
