The road to success is usually an uphill task and CEO of leading telecommunications company MTN has not been left out. Selorm Adadevoh recalls the frustrations he had to surmount before getting a shot at his first job.

Despite his rich educational background, he went through the stress of being rejected numerous times, having submitted over 400 applications to companies without response as well as going for interviews.

He finally secured one job out of the lot, which became the turning point in his life.

He revealed that he got a stint with Electrolux Company after four months of countless rejections in the job seeking process.

Mr Adadevoh said, “My friends kept wondering. They said what’s wrong with this guy? You went to school in Ghana, you’ve come to London and you want an office job. It doesn’t work that way but something in me kept me going. But I really wanted this break. I kept studying, I kept going for interviews, I did over 400 interviews and I got one job offer. But that’s all I needed. Just one job offer”.



He stated that, in the current digitization era, most Ghanaians do not have the ‘spirit’ of patience, neither do they have the stamina to keep pressing on when they are in search of jobs, rather, what they believe in is the fallacy of immediacy, and when things don’t go their way, they give up.

Making reference to his life story at the 2019 SpringBoard Convocation in Accra, Mr Adadevoh urged the patrons to believe in themselves and their capabilities though there would be trying times where the situation will seem hopeless.

He said, “Sometimes you have to hang in, and if you believe it enough, you will put what you need in and it will happen”.

He further added that having a zeal for something coupled with determination was what led to his success in gaining his first job.