The Sri Lanka House desk that meets the returning professional at the airport with a list of who wants to hire them

A first step

Ask 5 employers in Colombo which roles they have failed to fill from local hiring, and whether they would interview a returning professional for them. Write each role down. Then post the list in 2 professional groups for Sri Lankans abroad and ask who plans to return within a year and fits a role. One employer and one returnee agreeing to talk is the first proof the desk works.

Who pays first

A Colombo employer short of experienced staff, who pays a placement fee because the desk brings a qualified returnee to the interview.

What leaves today

Professionals trained abroad come home without a job waiting and many leave again, and the missing proof is that work is ready on arrival.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

What the book adds

And a five hundred and first, which is not mine to write: the next five hundred, because this list is the country's.

In the book

• Ch. EightWhat It Costs to Go First
  The first one through pays the whole price
• Ch. SeventeenOne Building
  Sri Lankans abroad given precise roles: sponsor, mentor, introduce

More from cluster 28

• 496A "first year back" service: the accountant, the school, the doctor, the driver, in a monthly fee
• 497Returnee co-working houses in Colombo and Kandy, so that the first year is not spent alone
• 498A returnee investment fund that takes twenty small stakes in this list, run by returnees
• 500A licence-to-practise service for returning professionals: the doctor's, nurse's, engineer's or accountant's foreign qualification recognised at home, paperwork, exams and all, for a fixed fee

All 5 ideas in this cluster