Letters from the Diaspora (Diaspora Stories) is a newsletter series by Send App where we chat with someone from the diaspora and explore what life abroad really feels like, from the wins, the challenges, and the little things that keep us going. This Month, we spoke with Theater Process Analyst, Ijeoma.
When we got on a call with Ijeoma at lunchtime, she was wearing surgical scrubs and a white coat over it. Ijeoma had responded to our callout for Africans living abroad to share their stories. In her submission, she had briefly summarized her story as "how I found a job in a new field without prior industry experience." So ordinarily her medical uniform puzzled us.
But Ijeoma isn’t a nurse or a doctor, she’s a Theatre Process Analyst – a role she describes, with a touch of humor as ‘everything’ that a nurse or doctor isn’t in a theater.
Her job is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operating room processes. She spends her days in a theater in Ireland, analyzing, and reporting on theatre utilization, billing every theatre case, and collaborating with nurses, doctors and consultants to understand how she can make their job of saving lives better.
She became a Theater Process Analyst without prior experience. Her closest work experience in the medical field was a 6-month internship in a Medtech Startup as a Master’s student.
Before being a Theater Process Analyst, Ijeoma was a HR/Recruitment Professional for 10 years, and somewhere in between those years, she decided to rewrite her career story by taking the least travelled path of doing ‘the hard things.’ In September 2022, Ijeoma moved to Ireland to pursue a Master’s degree in Strategy, Innovation & People Management at University of Galway. She graduated with a First Class and a Best Researcher award in her class — a total re-write of her 2:2 undergrad degree from Nigeria.
Ijeoma’s Rule on Getting a Job in the Diaspora Without Experience
#Rule 1: Never stay in a ‘starter’ job for too long
Ijeoma: When skilled immigrants come into a new country, they look for any role to get off their feet. My first job after school was in customer support for 3-4 months, and I don’t recommend staying in a starter job for too long. My plan while taking that customer support role was to use it to build industry understanding in a growing sector within my new country as quickly as possible.
#Rule 2: Getting a starter job should be this easy
Ijeoma: I asked myself, what outsourcing agencies help immigrants get those ‘starter’ jobs? Then I searched for the top four agencies in Ireland, and ranked them by the number of African hires they had (and people who looked like me). One of them had a customer service role listed, I applied and got called the next day.
#Rule 3: Pay attention, take nothing personally, mindset is everything
Ijeoma: When I started applying for the job I really wanted, I was told that I was overqualified in one of the interviews. That unpleasant feedback kept being repeated in subsequent interviews. So I removed my MBA and MSC degree and Global Professional HR certification from my CV, and downplayed some of my skills to give me a fair playing chance. My strategy was simple: listen and keep tweaking my application based on market feedback.
#Rule 4: Callbacks are just new playing cards. Okay?
Ijeoma: I noticed high callback rates for HR Analyst/HRIS and systems roles compared to general HR roles. In the callback interviews, my first ever work experience - over 10 years ago - kept getting referenced. The role was a data research analyst job at an Economics firm and lasted for a year. That told me that what this country needs is not my HR/Recruitment skills, but my Analyst skills. So guess what I did? I amplified that part of me on my CV, and in every interview, I positioned myself as more of a HR analyst.
#Rule 5: Don’t get stuck on the certifications loop
Ijeoma: I didn’t have any analyst certificate. Certifications are not everything the business world is after, they want people who can deliver results. It's good to have a certification but you also need to show results even if it's on a small scale, but remember a positive mindset and the right attitude is everything.
#Rule 6: Don’t spam applications. Please don’t burn out.
Ijeoma: The strategy of applying just anywhere can lead to burnout but streamlining roles and industries will give you better results. Before I came into Ireland, I researched its growing and talent-desperate industries, and three came up: tech, construction and healthcare, (and I saw a bit of financial services too). I was sincerely not planning on going into big tech because I knew how saturated it was. I decided to play differently.
#Rule 7: When you finally get the job, don’t you dare quit
Ijeoma: There were moments when I almost quit my current job, but my husband kept reminding me of why I moved. I wanted to rewrite my career story and this job was my way of validating that. Over time my capacity grew, and I started to love my job.
#Rule 8: Put everything on the line because you fought to get here. Remember?
Ijeoma: Adjusting to the pressure, and expectations of this job was hard - 6 months in a MedTech startup didn’t prepare me for the terminologies in the theater. One thing that helped was doing a first 100 days challenge. I sacrificed my weekends and social media to study reports, notes, and meeting minutes that I meticulously took. It helped me come up to speed quickly. And yes, thank God for Chat GPT :)
#Rule 9: Repeat after me: Give to your employer, and give to yourself.
Ijeoma: I walk 12,000 steps a day to get my heart pumping and manage stress, I also use the time to catch up with loved ones or on social media. It’s easy to give everything to your employer and forget yourself, but without your body, the work doesn’t get done.
#Rule 10: Remember Rule 3 & 4 when job searching
Ijeoma: Actively listen and adapt what you’ve learned. If you were a HR person back home or a marketer, you mustn't follow that career path. Ask what skills you have that your new location desperately needs and even if that skill was a secondary part of your job, amplify it as a primary.
Finally: Always back yourself
Ijeoma: If you ask me what the most rewarding part of my job is, I would say it is how much self-belief and the opportunity it has given me to contribute to the Irish healthcare industry where I can see clearly the impact of my role in people's lives.
The pressure of Ijeoma’s demanding job is absolved by the love of the community and hobbies she has built in Ireland. She met some of her closest friends on Linkedin, and others in her local church. She takes long walks while listening to her favourite songs, like Common Person by Burna Boy.
Do the hard thing is the latest feature in our "Diaspora Stories" newsletter. It's our third published story, and you can catch our second story here. It’s about how Amaka built a life in transit, visiting 25 countries and counting using a Nigerian Passport.