Pakistan doesn’t have a talent shortage. It has a broken hiring system
After nearly 13 years working across HR, operations, hiring and business leadership, I have sat on both sides of the same frustrating conversation. Employers tell me, “We cannot find good people”. Jobseekers tell me, “There are no good opportunities”. For years, I treated these as two separate problems. I no longer do. Speaking directly with employers, recruiters, and jobseekers has made one thing increasingly clear to me: Pakistan does not only have an unemployment problem or a skills problem. We also have a hiring infrastructure problem. The right candidate may already be in the pile Take a very normal hiring situation. A company posts one vacancy and receives 500 applications. That looks like abundance. In reality, it often becomes a filtering problem. If a recruiter spends only two minutes reviewing each curriculum vitae (CV), that is almost 17 hours of work before a single proper conversation has taken place. Add shortlisting, calls, scheduling, no-shows, interview notes and follow-ups, and the cost of one vacancy starts looking very different. This is why I am cautious whenever somebody says, “There is no talent in the market”. Sometimes there is no shortage of talent. The ri
After nearly 13 years working across HR, operations, hiring and business leadership, I have sat on both sides of the same frustrating conversation. Employers tell me, “We cannot find good people”. Jobseekers tell me, “There are no good opportunities”. For years, I treated these as two separate problems. I no longer do. Speaking directly with employers, recruiters, and jobseekers has made one thing increasingly clear to me: Pakistan does not only have an unemployment problem or a skills problem. We also have a hiring infrastructure problem. The right candidate may already be in the pile Take a very normal hiring situation. A company posts one vacancy and receives 500 applications. That looks like abundance. In reality, it often becomes a filtering problem. If a recruiter spends only two minutes reviewing each curriculum vitae (CV), that is almost 17 hours of work before a single proper conversation has taken place. Add shortlisting, calls, scheduling, no-shows, interview notes and follow-ups, and the cost of one vacancy starts looking very different. This is why I am cautious whenever somebody says, “There is no talent in the market”. Sometimes there is no shortage of talent. The ri
