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First it was city specific, then it was company specific, now its university specific. Brightspyre has been constantly expanding and innovating itself as a leading provider to job-search portals in Pakistan, and this recent development had me take my admiration of the team up a notch.

On 15th April, they launched a job board specifically targeting the students of GIKI.

In my opinion, this is a genuine need in the country. With so much time and effort expended by companies in scouting universities for top new employees, having it extend into the online world was the only logical choice. The way it works is simple, and is benefiting to both sides of the equation.

On one hand, students of GIKI get jobs specifically targeted towards them, and they know if they apply through this portal, their application is going to get preference. Afterall, the employers wants them! That effectively raises their chances of securing a good job many basis points.

One the other hand, employers routinely filter resume’s on the basis of university attended because lets face it, not every university is equal. While I’m not in favor of this practice and would rather judge the candidate rather than their university background, at the back of my mind, its still a pretty strong filter. Specific job boards then also allow employers to sort through applications more effectively, since they now know where they’re coming from.

A win-win situation…. right?…. not exactly. You see, proponents of fair employment practices would try to take down this effort on the basis of equality and fairness, and they would be right in a sense. When employers target specific universities for their next round of freshers, they are essentially creating a class system in which anyone who doesn’t belong to a higher strata (IBA, LUMS, GIKI etc) doesn’t get a chance. But again, not something which has not been happening before anyway, at least as far as the initial filtering is concerned. The good news here is, as hiring processes are becoming more and more sophisticated and candidate based, the idea that just because you attended LUMS means you get in, is slowly fading away.

Also, in my opinion, these job boards will help freshers get their first jobs, and not affect how hiring of experienced personnel is done. However that still remains to be seen. If these university specific job boards take on the the format of an alumni association, then we just might be standing on the brink of a major change in the hiring world.