He wiped the sweat off his forehead and the wet eyebrows as his hollow gaze reluctantly shifted from the ceiling towards me for a moment. A moment which made him twitch uncomfortably. His gaze quickly went back to the ceiling.  It looked like he was praying for something to appear there, someone to write something, some ‘help’. 

I have had the opportunity to interview many candidates for various jobs in my career.  I have been doing this for some time now.  It does not take a very keen eye to see the trend. The number of candidates who are ill-prepared for job interviews and the industry they want to enter is not waning but is on the rise!  And that is the trend that disturbs me.

Would he be even able to use that “help”? I wondered sitting in my chair across this young man in his mid-20s.  “I am a graduate” he had said in his introduction.  Tall, lanky and somewhat withdrawn. The tea that I offered him was still there untouched and now cold. He sat there with his gaze up in the ceiling still searching for the answer to a simple question I threw at him. I knew he knew the answer.  He was simply not able to tell me what he knew.  His predicament was painful.

He finally looked at me and blurted something I could not hear.  “Sorry?” I responded looking at him, with my head turned a little to the right and showing him my left ear, suggesting that I did not hear what he said.  He blurted something again; I could not hear it again. I looked at him intently. I was sure he could speak much louder and clearer than that.  It was not his vocal cords, no it was not! It was his confidence that was not allowing him to say whatever he wanted to say loudly enough for me to hear.  It seemed that he did not want me to hear it in the hope that I would ignore it and move on.  That was not to be.

With less than 8% educated youth being able to secure jobs, the expression “educated-unemployable” is fast catching up

His hands were lifeless somewhat when I finally shook hands with him and escorted him to the door.  “We will get back to you” I said trying to appear as promising as possible.  I knew I would not call him ever.  I took the seal, checked the ink on it and stamped it on his resume.  It was not written by him. I suspected that when I read it and I was sure of it the moment he started speaking.  I looked at the red stamping. Perfect.  The edges were crisp with no ink bleeding.  It was the 30th of the day.  I sighed wondering if we would really get someone.

The head of recruitment looked at me with the usual dismay.  He was sure I would not have put the “green” seal on too many resumes as always.  He had his targets to meet; the target of getting in people. It was not for him to worry about whether the people who go in were used for the purpose they came in; whether they were used at all!  His job was to get people inside.

“What happened?” he asked me.  His tone suggesting, he knew what I would say. I smiled at him. “It is just another day. Nothing I can give you” I quipped and walked out of the room. The espresso at the café was boring today. It usually isn’t.  I wondered if it was the coffee or me.  It was perhaps me after all I thought.   “Where is the problem?” was the question that was eating me. Was there a problem at all? Or was it me? Could I have looked at some of them a little differently today?  Were all of them bad? What if I failed to see their “work worthiness?” Am I rigid? Am I fair? There is no denying that I was playing with people’s lives in a way.  I shuddered at the thought. It was cold.  I sipped on the coffee.  It still tasted “boring”.

I found my pen lying beneath a sheaf of paper and odd stationery scattered without purpose on my desk, as if discarded.  I signed the report checking the contents.  No greens for today.  I bundled all the papers that had in them not just details about people, but their hope, anxiety and prayers. I had seen thousands of them, but I had used the green stamp on only a handful of them in the last 8 years.  A horrible minority in a country that has millions of people in the prime of their youth. “Who is responsible?” was my thought through my drive back home.  I didn’t sleep well.

The paradox never fails to hit me.  The Paradox of millions of young people not having work in a country that has half of its population under the age of 25, most of them educated. If only literacy, education and qualification were looked at critically, the Paradox perhaps would not be. With less than 8% educated youth being able to secure jobs, the expression “educated-unemployable” is fast catching up.  It is the truth; however inconvenient it may be.  And it is an explosive truth.  How much time do we have before explosion? I do not know. But I think it is not too much.  Truly little time. Lots to ponder. Great many things to do.