From Archaeology to Human Resources

I Didn’t Choose HR. HR Found Me.

From Archaeology to Talent Acquisition: How I Found the Career I Wasn’t Looking For

I didn’t choose HR — HR found me.

I graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with a 2:1 in Archaeology and had plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Egypt. Human Resources wasn’t even on my radar.

But somewhere between Lagos buses, telesales, a database of professionals and an unexpected interview, I found the career that would eventually become more than just a job to me.

Looking back now, I can see something I couldn’t see then.

God was ordering my steps long before I understood where those steps were taking me.

I Had a Plan

Like many fresh graduates, I had a plan.

Mine was very clear — or at least I thought it was.

I would complete my National Youth Service and afterwards proceed for a Master’s degree in Archaeology in Egypt.

I know, right?

I laugh when I think about it now because I had mapped out this beautiful plan without necessarily consulting the people who were going to pay for the Master’s degree — my family!

But jokes aside, I genuinely loved Archaeology. I thoroughly enjoyed studying it and, at the time, I could see opportunities for myself within the field in Nigeria.

So, in my head, my career direction was settled.

Then Lagos happened.

Lagos Changed the Plan

For my National Youth Service, I was deployed to Lagos.

For those who may not be familiar with Nigeria’s NYSC programme, graduates are required to serve the country for one year, usually working in either the public or private sector.

I was new to Lagos and initially posted to a bank in Victoria Island.

There was just one small problem.

I lived on the mainland.

Taking taxis every day certainly wasn’t sustainable on a corps member’s allowance, which meant relying on Lagos buses.

Now, if you lived in Lagos in those days, you understand what that meant.

Getting on some of those buses required a special skill set nobody taught us at university. Sometimes you practically chased the bus, jumped in while it was moving and somehow learnt to jump out at your destination like a flying bat.

I simply couldn’t imagine doing that journey from the mainland to Victoria Island every morning.

So I made a decision.

At the time, I thought I was my own career coach.

Looking back now, I realise God was my Career Coach.

I was making decisions that seemed practical at the time without knowing where they would eventually lead me.

I decided I would find a company closer to home, complete my 12 months of service there and figure out the rest afterwards.

That seemingly simple decision changed the direction of my career.

My First Real Job

I joined a small sales consulting firm as a corps member.

And when I say small, I mean small.

There were about six of us: the MD, someone who was essentially the COO, a Business Manager, an Accountant, the Cleaner — and me.

My job was telesales.

I searched for contacts, made cold calls, built pipelines and passed potential opportunities through.

After completing my one-year service, the company retained me as a full-time employee and my responsibilities gradually expanded.

Somewhere around this period, my dream of pursuing a Master’s degree in Archaeology quietly died a natural death.

There was no dramatic announcement.

I simply stopped thinking about it.

My focus had shifted.

I wanted to build a career, earn money and, quite frankly, look at my bank account and see some savings.

Archaeology had somehow moved from being the plan to becoming part of my history.

Quite appropriate for an Archaeology graduate, I suppose.

The Database That Changed Everything

As my role evolved, I moved away from pure telesales and became more involved in programme management.

Our company specialised in sales consulting and training. We worked with OEMs, banks, FMCGs, SMEs and other organisations, delivering programmes around different areas of sales capability.

Part of my responsibility was maintaining a database of professionals who attended these programmes.

But it wasn’t simply a list of names.

Over time, I built professional relationships with many of these people. I knew what some of them did, where they worked and the kinds of roles they held.

Without knowing it, I was building a network that would eventually play a significant role in my career.

About three years into the job, one of the big OEMs coming into Nigeria needed to hire its first Key Account Manager.

A colleague in our recruitment team was handling the assignment and came to me.

“Among the people in your database, is there a strong salesperson you can recommend?”

I realised I couldn’t just give her a name.

I needed to understand what they were looking for.

How many years of experience did they need?

What kind of salesperson were they looking for?

What industry experience was important?

What qualifications or certifications did they require?

What exactly would make someone successful in the role?

Once I understood the requirements, I could go into my network and identify people whose experience appeared to fit.

Then another recruitment assignment came.

And another.

Before long, I found myself regularly supporting my recruitment colleague.

There was only one funny thing.

I didn’t know I was recruiting.

I didn’t know the terminology. I didn’t know about sourcing strategies or candidate pipelines.

I simply knew that before recommending someone for a job, I needed to understand the job and understand the person.

Unknown to me, I had stumbled into recruitment.

Then I Fell in Love With It

The more I supported recruitment, the more something began to change.

Every time I heard that a company had filled a role with one of the candidates I referred, I felt this incredible sense of happiness and fulfilment.

Someone had found an opportunity.

An organisation had found the person it needed.

And somehow, I had played a small part in bringing the two together.

I loved that feeling.

There was a sense of joy and peace that came with it.

Eventually, I started asking myself:

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could actually do this full-time?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the opportunity to move into the recruitment team.

My boss believed I would make a fantastic sales consultant. That was the direction I was being developed towards and, from his perspective, it probably made perfect sense.

But something had changed for me.

I was being prepared for one career while quietly falling in love with another.

After four years with the organisation, I made a difficult decision.

I took a bow.

I didn’t have everything figured out.

I didn’t even have the recruitment job I wanted waiting for me.

I simply knew I needed to take one step closer to the work that gave me this sense of fulfilment.

One Step Closer to HR

My next opportunity came with an HR consulting firm.

Now, before you think, “Great! She finally got into HR!”

Not quite.

I was still in Sales.

The difference was what I was selling.

Instead of selling sales-related programmes and services, I was now selling HR products and services.

And for me, that was progress.

I was one step closer.

My role involved meeting clients, understanding their people challenges and discussing HR interventions, recruitment solutions, training programmes and other services that could help address those challenges.

Technically, I still wasn’t an HR practitioner.

But I was now having HR conversations.

I was learning the language and beginning to understand organisations through the lens of their people challenges.

Most importantly, I was getting closer to the area I really wanted to build my career in — Recruitment.

Then one day, I saw an advert.

An American company with an office in Lagos was looking for a Recruitment Partner.

I had never heard of the company.

And my first reaction wasn’t exactly, “Finally! This is my opportunity!”

It was more like:

“Are they really looking for someone like me?”

Because on paper, I wasn’t a Recruiter.

I had never held the title and I wasn’t sitting in a recruitment team managing recruitment end-to-end.

But I read the job description again.

And the more I read, the more familiar it became.

Wait a minute.

I’ve done these things.

Maybe not full-time.

Maybe not across the entire recruitment lifecycle.

Maybe I didn’t have the title.

But I had done them.

My gut feeling said:

Apply.

So I did.

The Interview That Changed My Career

Once I got the invitation, I knew I didn’t want to rely 100% on the experience I had gathered from supporting my recruitment colleague.

So I prepared.

I searched the web, went on YouTube and practised as many recruitment interview questions as I could find.

And I’ll be truthful: I wasn’t preparing because I believed I was going to get the job.

I prepared because I thought it would be nice to experience an interview for an actual HR-related role.

Was I confident I would get the job?

No.

Was I confident that I had done some of the things in the job description?

Yes.

On the day of the interview, I arrived about 45 minutes to an hour early.

I sat at reception and waited until it was time.

Eventually, I walked into the interview room.

And till today, I am still looking for the level of confidence I had that day!

My interviewer was the Recruitment Leader responsible for the Middle East and Africa. He was based in Dubai but happened to be visiting Nigeria.

Thankfully, his interview style immediately put me at ease. It felt more like a conversation than an interrogation.

Then he asked me a question I have never forgotten:

“What are your sourcing channels?”

I had prepared for recruitment questions, but at that moment I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by sourcing channels.

Instead of pretending, I asked him to explain.

“Where do you get your candidates from?” he said.

Oh!

Fantastic.

Now we were speaking my language.

I talked about direct poaching and some of the ways I identified professionals.

Then I mentioned LinkedIn.

He stopped me.

“How long have you been using LinkedIn?”

I explained that I had been using it for about two years and had increasingly started using it to identify professionals.

Sometimes someone would give me a name and I would search for the person.

Other times, I would search using job titles and play around with different ways of identifying professionals who might fit what my recruitment colleague needed.

His response surprised me.

“You have what I’m looking for.”

At the time, the organisation was investing heavily in LinkedIn as a sourcing tool for its recruiters.

Something I had taught myself to use had suddenly become one of the skills that differentiated me.

But perhaps my favourite moment from that interview came afterwards.

I Drew a Sales Funnel

Throughout the interview, I was very clear about one thing:

I was a salesperson.

I wasn’t going to pretend that I had years of full-time recruitment experience.

Instead, I needed to show him why my sales experience mattered.

Thankfully, there was a board in the room.

I stood up and drew a sales funnel.

I explained that in telesales, if I wanted to identify the best potential clients, I couldn’t make one cold call and expect success.

I needed volume at the top of the funnel.

Then I would qualify.

And qualify again.

Until the strongest opportunities emerged.

Then I connected it to recruitment.

If you’re filling a role, you don’t simply speak to one person and stop.

You source.

You build a pipeline.

You screen.

You assess.

And gradually, you narrow the pool until the candidates who most closely meet the requirements emerge.

Different profession. Same transferable skill.

He looked at me and said:

“I think you’re the person we’re looking for.”

He told me there and then that he was happy to progress me to the next stage.

I completed the second interview.

Then the final interview.

And I got the job.

Finally, I Was a Recruiter

The Archaeology graduate who once planned to pursue a Master’s degree in Egypt had become a Recruitment Partner.

No carefully mapped-out ten-year plan.

No straight line.

Just a series of experiences that, looking backwards, suddenly started making sense.

Archaeology taught me to search and explore.

Sales taught me to prospect, engage, influence and manage pipelines.

Programme management taught me about stakeholders and relationships.

Managing that database gave me a network.

Supporting my colleague introduced me to recruitment.

Even LinkedIn — something I had simply started using to find professionals — became a skill that helped distinguish me during the interview.

The dots connected.

And this is where the story becomes deeply personal for me.

Today, working in Talent Acquisition gives me tremendous joy, peace and fulfilment.

I often tell people:

My job is not just a job to me. It is an assignment. It is a ministry.

Because behind every CV is a person.

Someone with hopes.

Someone trying to take the next step.

Someone looking for an opportunity.

And behind every vacancy is an organisation trying to solve a problem and find the right person to help move its business forward.

I get the privilege of standing somewhere in between.

And I don’t take that privilege lightly.

Looking Back, I Can See It Now

For a long time, I thought I was making random career decisions.

I thought I chose a company closer to home because I couldn’t deal with Lagos buses.

I thought I was simply maintaining a database.

I thought I was merely helping my recruitment colleague.

I thought moving to an HR consulting company was just one step closer to HR.

But looking back now, I see those moments differently.

God was ordering my steps when I didn’t even realise there were steps being ordered.

And perhaps that’s one of the biggest lessons my career has taught me:

Not every career journey is a straight line.

Sometimes, you discover your career while doing something else.

Sometimes, the experience that qualifies you for your next opportunity is hiding inside a job title that looks completely unrelated.

Sometimes, you have to leave what you’re good at to pursue what gives you fulfilment.

And sometimes, you simply have to apply.

So, if you’re reading this while trying to figure out your own career, don’t be too quick to disqualify your journey because it doesn’t look linear.

Your degree does not always determine your destination.

Your first job does not have to become your forever career.

Don’t dismiss the skills you’re learning simply because they don’t yet come with the title you want.

Pay attention to the work that gives you fulfilment.

And when an opportunity comes that looks bigger than your current title, don’t automatically tell yourself:

“I’m not qualified.”

Ask a different question:

“What have I already done that is transferable?”

I could have looked at that Recruitment Partner advert and concluded:

“I’m a salesperson. I’m not a recruiter.”

Instead, I looked at my experience differently.

And that second look changed my career.

Perhaps your next opportunity is already hiding somewhere inside the experience you have today.

You just need to look at it differently.