Applying for a job in another African country: what changes, and what doesn’t

Most candidates make the same mistake, and it costs them months. They read that their region has free movement, conclude that they can go and work next door, and find out six weeks later that the employer cannot hire them.

The confusion comes from a distinction nobody explains: regional protocols govern how you may enter. Each country’s national law governs whether you may work there. Two different questions, and the second is almost never settled by the first.

What free movement actually gives you

West Africa

The 1979 ECOWAS protocol gives Community citizens the right to enter another member state without a visa for a stay of up to 90 days, carrying a valid travel document and an international health certificate. Beyond 90 days, you need an extension from the authorities of the host country.

The text sets out three phases: right of entry, right of residence, right of establishment. The first applies everywhere. The other two were built out through supplementary protocols, and implementation still varies from one country to the next.

One point few people have read: the protocol itself sets no conditions on access to employment. It organises movement, not work. Each member state keeps control of its rules for hiring foreign nationals, and may refuse entry to anyone it treats as inadmissible under its own law.

East Africa

The EAC Common Market Protocol, in force since 2010, provides for the free movement of workers between partner states. It operates through national commitments, and implementation differs from one country to another. Along with West Africa, this is the region that has gone furthest on the continent — but furthest does not mean automatic.

Southern Africa

The SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons was adopted in 2005. It has still not entered into force.For Southern Africa, you are therefore governed entirely by each country’s national law, and by bilateral agreements where they exist.

Continental

The African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons was adopted in 2018. It has attracted 32 signatures but only four ratifications — Mali, Niger, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe — against the fifteen needed for it to take effect. In other words: there is no continent-wide free movement yet. When someone tells you otherwise, they are describing an ambition, not a right.

The real question: can you be hired?

In almost every African country, an employer recruiting a foreign national needs an authorisation: a work permit, an expatriate quota, or both. The administrative burden falls on the employer, not on you — which is precisely why many recruiters quietly set foreign applications aside.

Three practical consequences.

Ask early, and plainly. In the first exchange: “Are you able to sponsor a work permit for a candidate from [country]?” A serious recruiter answers in one sentence. A no in week one beats silence in week ten.

Target employers who already do it. International organisations, pan-African groups, regional NGOs and companies that already have foreign nationals on the team have the process in place. A local SME that has never recruited outside its borders will not start with you.

Check the rules at source, never on a blog. This one included. Permit regimes change, sometimes year to year. The only sources that bind anyone are the destination country’s immigration service and its embassy. Ask in writing, and keep the answer.

The CV that travels, and the one that doesn’t

This is the most concrete point, and it takes an hour to fix.

The anglophone CV runs to two pages, with no photograph, no date of birth, no marital status. It opens with a three-line summary, then experience in reverse chronological order, each role described through quantified results rather than duties.

The francophone CV often carries a photograph, age, family situation, nationality, sometimes a driving licence, and may run beyond two pages. Sent as it stands to Lagos, Accra or Nairobi, it surprises — and the photograph and age can create a compliance problem for a recruiter trained in non-discrimination rules.

If you apply on both sides of that cultural line, keep two versions of your CV, not a translation of one. And translate the job titles, not just the words: chargé de mission becomes project officer, programme officer or adviser depending on the role, and cadre has no direct equivalent at all.

The same goes for qualifications. Write “Maîtrise (four years of higher education)” rather than the abbreviation alone, and add an equivalence line where one exists. A recruiter who does not recognise your degree will not go looking: they will move to the next file.

Recognition of qualifications

If the role is regulated — health, law, engineering, teaching, accountancy — recognition is not a formality, it is a condition. You apply to the competent national body in the destination country, usually attached to the ministry of higher education, and it takes time.

Two pieces of advice. Start the process before you have an offer, not after: it is often the recognition timeline that kills a hire, not the candidate. And have your original documents legalised or apostilled while you are still in your own country — far simpler on the spot than from abroad.

Naming a salary in another currency

Do not convert your current salary. A converted figure means nothing: it ignores the cost of living, local taxation and what the destination market actually pays.

Give a range in the currency of the role, based on what that market pays for that function. And before you accept, ask what the offer covers: housing and school fees are sometimes included in an expatriate package and never in a local contract. Ask who pays the tax, and in which country.

The case nobody writes about: working remotely

You live in Cotonou, the employer is in Nairobi, you are not moving. No work permit — but in most cases no local employment contract either. You will usually be an independent contractor, which means you invoice, you declare the income where you live, you pay your own social contributions, and you have neither paid leave nor severance.

None of that is a problem in itself. It becomes one if you discover it after signing. Settle three things first: your status, who pays the contributions, and the invoicing currency.

Before you apply

• My passport is valid for more than six months beyond my intended departure
• I have asked the employer in writing whether they can sponsor a permit
• I have the version of my CV that matches the destination country
• My certificates are legalised, and recognition is under way if the profession is regulated
• I have a salary range in the local currency, not a conversion
• I have checked the immigration rules on the country’s official site, this year