Starter Kit. Idea 317 of 500. Cluster 15
A jobs board for returning Sri Lankans, with salaries published
The mechanism, from the book
The proof exists in Malabe. What is missing is a thousand small versions of it.
The first step
Collect 20 job openings from firms on the island, each with the salary published, by asking HR managers directly whether they will list a salary in exchange for reaching returning professionals. Post them in two Sri Lankan professional groups abroad and count the applications. Firms that ask to list more jobs, or offer to pay for it, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- An island employer who struggles to hire experienced professionals and will pay to reach Sri Lankans abroad who are thinking of coming home.
- What leaves today
- Sri Lankans abroad who would come home cannot see what jobs here pay, so their skills and earnings stay abroad.
Ask first
- Data Protection Authority. Ask what consent you need to hold and share applicants' CVs.
- Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment. Ask whether they hold any record of skilled workers who may want to return.
Check before you spend
That every employer agrees in writing to publish the salary, how applicants' data is stored, and whether charging employers needs a licence as an agency.
Find out these three numbers
- How many firms will publish a real salary to reach returners?
- How many applications did each published job attract?
- What would a firm pay to list one job?
A comparison from the book
The engineers who left. Chapter Eight
"At least 10,000 IT engineers have relocated since the crisis began, by the estimate of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka."
The engineers who left are a known pool; a published salary is what makes coming back a real option.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.