When “Who Do You Know” Matters More Than “What Do You Know”

It usually starts with a simple question. You walk into an interview, hand over your CV, answer every question with confidence, and then someone leans back and asks, “Aap ko reference kiska hai?” In that moment, years of CGPA, certifications, and late nights preparing can suddenly matter less than a phone call someone else can make on your behalf. This is the quiet injustice of Pakistan’s job market: a system where merit may be the entry ticket, but connections often become the real currency.

The Two Parallel Systems

Officially, every job posting talks about qualifications, experience, and skills. Unofficially, everyone knows there are two systems running side by side.

One is for students who study hard, build strong resumes, apply through proper channels, and wait sometimes for months for a callback that may never come.

The other is for those whose uncle, family friend, or a former colleague of their father can simply say, “Isay rakh lo,” and the position is filled before it is even advertised.

Both groups may hold similar degrees. Both may have put in real effort. But for only one group, effort alone is enough.

This is not just a Pakistani problem, and it is not new. Sociologists call it social capital, the idea that who you know can be just as valuable as what you know. But in economies with limited opportunities and intense competition, this gap becomes sharper and more painful. When there are hundreds of applicants for one seat, a single reference does not just help it can decide everything.

Who Pays the Price

The real cost of this system is not paid by those benefiting from it. It is paid by capable, hardworking students from middle- and lower-income families who do not have a “connection” to call.

They watch classmates with weaker transcripts secure internships and jobs they themselves were rejected from not because they lacked skill, but because they lacked access.

Over time, this teaches a dangerous lesson to young people: competence feels optional, while connections seem essential. Some respond by giving up on merit and chasing influence instead. Others, more painfully, lose motivation altogether, convinced that no amount of hard work can compete with a single phone call.

This is how talent gets wasted not because it does not exist, but because the system was never built to recognize it fairly.

It Is Not Only About Fairness—It Is About Loss

When hiring is based on connections rather than ability, organizations lose too.

The most qualified person does not always get the job the best-connected one does. Projects suffer. Productivity suffers. Standards decline.

Slowly, mediocrity becomes normalized because no one is being held to meaningful standards.

A society that rewards connections over competence eventually suffers from weak institutions and wasted talent.

What Can Actually Change This

This injustice will not disappear through complaints alone. It changes when systems are built to reduce dependence on personal influence. Organizations can commit to structured, skill-based hiring through practical tests, blind shortlisting, and transparent evaluation criteria, ensuring ability becomes the first filter not familiarity.

Universities and career offices can build stronger bridges between students and industry so that opportunity is not limited to those who already have access. Students can also build visible proof of competence through projects, portfolios, certifications, internships, and freelance work evidence that speaks for them when no one else can.

As a society, we must stop normalizing sifarish as “just how things work” and start recognizing it for what it often becomes: a quiet form of injustice that determines who rises and who gets left behind.

None of this changes overnight. But every time a hiring manager chooses skill over a phone call, every time a student gets a fair opportunity because of what they built rather than who they know, the balance shifts a little.

The question “Kiska reference hai?” should not be the most important one in an interview room.

The work should speak first.

Until it does, for thousands of capable young people, the real interview is not about whether they are good enough it is about whether they know the right person to prove it.