When my cousin finished his BCom in Lahore, his first job search looked less like a plan and more like a pile: printed bank forms, a half-finished CV, and a list of relatives who supposedly knew someone in HR. Three months later he was still waiting for replies, not because he lacked a degree, but … Read more
The first time I watched a serious CSS aspirant prepare current affairs, I was struck by how little of it looked like studying. She was not buried in a thick textbook. She had a newspaper open, a notebook divided into columns, and one habit I had not expected: every few minutes she stopped and asked … Read more
When a friend from Rawalpindi showed me his Australia file, it was not a neat folder. It was a plastic envelope stuffed with a passport copy, two different CVs, a faded degree, and three agent visiting cards. He had already paid a large advance, yet nobody had explained which visa he was actually aiming for. … Read more
In a small co-working space in Gulberg, Lahore, I once watched a final-year engineering student pay PKR 3,000 for a CV that was, page for page, his old university assignment format with a new font. The shop had changed the colours, added a border, and kept every weakness: a three-paragraph objective that said nothing, duties … Read more
At a small consultancy office near Liberty Market in Lahore, I once watched a young software engineer hand over a thick file and a large cash payment to an agent who promised him a Canadian work visa in ninety days, without a job offer, without an employer, and without explaining which programme he would even … Read more
In a crowded second-floor academy room off Urdu Bazaar in Lahore, I once watched a PMS aspirant rewrite the same essay introduction four times in one evening, each version neater than the last and none of them saying anything new. The tutor praised the handwriting. Nobody asked what the argument was. That scene has stayed … Read more
The week I finished my MSc, a classmate in Lahore asked me a question that stayed with me for years: “Now what?” He had a degree, a decent result, and no plan. He spent the next six months applying for everything, from bank trainee posts to school teaching, and he took the first offer that … Read more
The first time I sat in a small recruitment office off Mall Road in Lahore, I was not the one applying. I had gone with a neighbour’s son who had been promised a “supervisor job in Kuala Lumpur” for a fee he could barely afford. The agent showed us glossy photographs of towers and a … Read more
The waiting room outside the FPSC interview hall in Islamabad tells you more about the CSS interview than any guidebook does. The last time I sat there with other candidates, the quiet was the loudest thing in the room. One candidate kept rehearsing constitutional articles under his breath, another kept straightening a tie he had … Read more
If you can explain something clearly in Urdu, English, or a mix of both, you already own the raw material for an online course. In Pakistan, that skill is worth more than most people realise, because students, job seekers, freelancers and small business owners are all looking for practical teaching that fits their lives, their … Read more