Elite Employee Quest competition, an initiative of the online enterprise solution, PushCV .com has unveiled officially in Lagos. The Elite Employee Quest, according to Co-Founder of PushCV, Somto Ifezue is aimed at searching out 5,000 of the best qualified job seekers and placing them into gainful employment in organisations.

“The programme is aimed at testing and assessing these candidates, to test their employability before we could place or publicise them to the companies in the labour market,” Ifezue told Vanguard on the sideline of an event to announce the competition before stakeholders in Lagos. He said interested and qualified candidates who want to be part of the competition “can apply online and take a couple of tests on online and we get back to them after a week.”

“The programme is expected to run for six weeks. Every week, the candidates are given tasks and are assessed by our stakeholders and partners. Every week they enter a different stage until the end of four weeks. By the fifth week, we start doing real interviews and at the end of the day, we come up with ranking process based on how fast a candidate has been able to complete a task. In the end, we have the final 5, 000 and their names being published in the media,” he explained.

Also speaking on the competition and its place on addressing the challenge of unemployment in Nigeria, Olumide Soyombo who is a board member of Leadpath Nigeria, a PushCV Investor, told Vanguard that the Elite Employee Quest initiative does not just seek to employ job seekers but to empower them with the requisite skills needed to thrive in the labour market.

“Platforms like these are here for enablement and capacity building. Most times we talk about unemployment in the country but what about employability? How many of these people are actually employable? So what is different from what PushCV is doing apart from job placement is that they also have initiatives around capacity building,” he said.

PushCV which started operations in March, 2014 and has processed over 70, 000 applications as a recruiter, said its key drive is to provide a level playing field to help talented individuals secure jobs based on skills, knowledge and experience and put them in front of appropriate employers.

According to them: “We believe that the Elite Employee Quest will positively reinforce and encourage prospective participants to take an interest in the recruitment process while helping companies access the most valuable talents easily and quickly.”