A Nigerian woman, Deborah Boms, has recounted her ordeal of searching unsuccessfully for a visa-sponsored job in the United Kingdom after completing her studies, a struggle that eventually forced her to return to Nigeria.
Boms said she submitted thousands of job applications and attended several interviews but was unable to secure employment that would allow her to remain in the UK legally.
Her experience, shared in a video on social media, has resonated with many, particularly international students grappling with similar visa and employment challenges overseas.
In the video, Boms documented her emotional transition from an optimistic international student to a graduate compelled to return home due to the absence of a sponsored job. The footage opened with a tearful phone conversation with her parents in Nigeria as she prepared to leave the UK.
Her father, she said, offered words of comfort, telling her, “We’re waiting for you. We cannot reject our own.”
Boms disclosed that the intense pressure of securing a sponsored role took a heavy emotional and financial toll on her, much of which was unseen by her followers online.
“At some point, I stopped counting,” she said. “I made about 3,000 job applications and attended 24 interviews in search of a sponsored position. None of them worked out it just never clicked.”
She added that while many people saw her studying, adjusting to life abroad and eventually graduating, few were aware of how close she came to losing everything she had worked for.
“What you didn’t see was how close I was to losing everything I was trying to build,” she said.
Her story has since sparked conversations online about the realities facing international graduates seeking to remain and work legally in foreign countries.
