Clarity, confidence and courage: Helping Sri Lanka’s graduates into work

For over 30 years, much of my work has involved helping people make sense of where they are in their careers and where they might go next. I have worked with people of different ages, in very different sectors and in different parts of the world. But there is something particularly troubling about what I am seeing amongst young graduates in Sri Lanka today.

These are not young people who have failed to try. Many have done exactly what was expected of them. They worked hard for their O/Ls and A/Ls. Their families paid for tuition and made sacrifices. They competed for university places and earned their degrees. The understanding was that, somewhere at the end of all this effort, there would be a job.

For far too many, that job is simply not there.

The figures tell us just how serious the problem has become. An IMF analysis published in September put unemployment among Sri Lankans aged 15–24 with post-secondary education at around 43%, the highest amongst the 12 Asia-Pacific economies compared. Our own Labour Force Survey measures this differently, but the picture is hardly reassuring. Youth unemployment stood at 19.5%, rising to 22.5% amongst young people with GCE A/L and above. Nearly 40,000 graduates aged 20 and above were unemployed, and around half of them were Arts graduates.

So I think we need to be careful about telling young people that they simply need to become more “employable”. There is a shortage of jobs. The World Bank estimates that nearly one million young Sri Lankans will enter the labour market over the next decade, while, without stronger growth and private investment, only around 300,000 new formal jobs are expected to be created.

We cannot coach our way out of that.

But there is another part of this which I believe we need to talk about. Have we prepared our young people for a world of work that no longer works in the way many of us were brought up to expect?

For generations the pathway was fairly straightforward: Education → Qualification → Job → Career. You did your part and expected the system to do its part.

But now, that relationship has changed.  Careers today are much less tidy. Young people may have to experiment, learn, adapt, reskill, make connections, change direction and try again. Sometimes more than once. I do not think we have done enough to prepare them for that reality.

There is also something particularly Sri Lankan in this. For many students, the subject they study at university is determined by Z-scores and district cut-off marks rather than by their interests, aptitude or career goals. So a young person can spend years earning a degree they did not really choose, and then arrive at the end without ever having had the chance to ask: What am I actually good at? Where could I use it?

In my work I keep coming back to three things: Clarity, Confidence and Courage.

Clarity, for me, is not simply deciding what job you want. It is knowing yourself well enough to understand what you are good at, what gives you energy, what matters to you and where those things might be useful. A degree tells us what somebody studied. It does not tell us all of that.

I think we have put far too much weight on qualifications in Sri Lanka. The right results. The right degree. The right title. Somewhere along the way, the person themselves can get lost.

I remember talking to one young person in Sri Lanka about strengths. Part-way through the conversation they stopped me, genuinely surprised. It had never occurred to them that you could actually enjoy what you do and come away from work energised rather than drained. Work, in their mind, was something you secured and then endured.

That conversation has stayed with me.

Confidence is another matter. Rejection wears people down. So does sending application after application and hearing nothing at all. After a while, a young person can move from thinking “the job market is difficult” to “perhaps I am not good enough”. Those are two very different conclusions.

When I work with people who have reached that point, I often ask them to tell me their story. What have you actually done? What difficulties have you overcome? What have other people trusted you to do? We put it down on paper. Quite often they are surprised by what is there, because they have become so focused on what has gone wrong that they have stopped seeing what has gone right.

Confidence has to come from what we have actually done. Full stop.

And then there is courage. Not dramatic courage. The ordinary kind. Applying for something when you do not meet every criterion. Asking somebody for an introduction. Learning something new when you are worried you might not be very good at it. Taking a first job that does not have the title your family hoped for. Or sometimes seeing a need and creating an opportunity rather than waiting for somebody to offer one.

A couple of years ago I worked with a young Sri Lankan man who was very capable but had become stuck and was being overlooked for promotion. We went through his skills and experience and practised how he could talk about what he had to offer. At his next appraisal, instead of simply waiting to hear what his manager thought of him, he talked about things he could see needed improving in the organisation and how he could help.

His manager listened. A position was created for him to do exactly that.

I like that story because it was not about somebody suddenly becoming fearless. He had become clearer about what he could offer, confident enough to say it, and courageous enough to put an idea on the table. So perhaps, sometimes, instead of only asking “Where is the position?”, we should also be asking “What could I create?”

But I do not want this to turn into yet another lecture to young people about resilience. Confidence and courage cannot manufacture jobs. Employers have a part to play. Universities have a part to play. Policymakers certainly do. And families do too.

Employers can create genuine entry-level opportunities and stop expecting young applicants to arrive with years of experience. Universities can start career conversations in the first year rather than waiting until students are about to leave. Policymakers need to keep working on the much bigger issue of job creation and the connection between education, vocational training and industry. And as families, perhaps we need to loosen our ideas about what a “good” career is supposed to look like.

After more than three decades of doing this work, I have no doubt that the talent is here. Our young people are capable and qualified. What worries me is how many have had very little opportunity to discover what they are good at, where they might contribute, and how much more they are than the certificate they hold.

We cannot promise them certainty and I am not sure we should even try. But we can help them find enough clarity to see a direction, enough confidence to recognise what they already bring, and enough courage to take the next step when the whole route is not yet visible.

The full article, including the supporting data, research and practical recommendations, is available on the Oxford Psychometrics website: oxford-psychometrics.com/qualified-but-uncertain-clarity-confidence-and-courage-for-sri-lankas-young-graduates

(The author is a Chartered Occupational and Coaching Psychologist, Founder of Oxford Psychometrics, and a Registered Career Development Professional with the Career Development Institute (UK), with over three decades of experience in international talent and career development)