Hear from Hassanat Abubakar: Alumni of the Month

I love the community newsletters we receive. They always encourage me to keep going. From the I4G community, I have learnt to showcase my skills, be active at tech events so people can know more about who I am and what I do. 

My name is Hassanat Abubakar, I am an associate product manager and I have I4G to thank for that!

After I graduated from the university, I started the mandatory NYSC. Before I completed my service year, the hospital I worked at experienced a crisis and I knew there was no way I could get retained because it was a difficult time for the hospital and it seemed like it would take a long time to recover. Getting a job as a biochemist in Nigeria is hard so I started looking for other opportunities. I met an old friend who told me about product management. I thought it was interesting so I started taking a free course online. Self learning was difficult especially because the course wasn’t well structured so it made learning frustrating. I had not completed my service at the hospital so I was still going to work physically. Combining work and the long hours in Lagos traffic made me exhausted whenever I got back home so it was hard to complete the course. 

I found out about the #NextAfricanPM scholarship program I4G partnered with EntryLevel to provide and I applied. Thankfully, I got selected!

The course was life changing! It was well structured and the modules were broken down to help learning for a newbie like me easy. Although the course was demanding, I put my best to complete the program. I also enjoyed learning with others, I had a community I was learning with so I didn’t feel alone. The peer reviews helped and with the portfolio we were asked to create, I was confident enough to start applying for jobs immediately I completed the course. I also had support from my friends and family, they encouraged me while I took the course.

A week after I completed the scholarship program, I applied for a job using the portfolio I created. I can confidently say this gave me an upper hand because of how the interview process was. Shortly after, I got an offer letter to resume as a product management intern.

6 months after my internship at the company, I got promoted to Associate Product Manager! This is me that started learning product management in less than a year!

I couldn’t have achieved this without the support of the I4G community, my friends and family. I’m glad I took the bold step of learning product management. 

My advice to anyone looking to build a career in tech is, do your research and be sure you are building a skill in a field that you love. Don’t give up! Keep putting in the effort, it’d pay off!