Starter Kit. Idea 499 of 500. Cluster 28
The Sri Lanka House desk that meets the returning professional at the airport with a list of who wants to hire them
The mechanism, from the book
The first one through pays the whole price, and everyone after walks through an open door. These are the doors.
The 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.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment. Ask what they know of professionals coming home and the skills they bring.
- Board of Investment of Sri Lanka. Ask which employers they work with that struggle to hire senior staff.
Check before you spend
Confirm that each employer agrees in writing to interview the people you send, the fee is agreed first, and candidates' details are kept private.
Find out these three numbers
- Which roles have employers failed to fill locally?
- What fee would an employer pay for a placed professional?
- How many professionals abroad would move for those roles?
A comparison from the book
Ireland. Chapter Fourteen
"Within a decade the country that had exported its young for a century was gaining people again."
People come home when there is work to come home to. The list of jobs is the first step.
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.