What have you done? What have you achieved? What have you learned?

This is a competitive world, which is why we learn to collect certificates, internships, volunteering, awards, and publications. There comes a point when the question is no longer whether an experience is valuable for us but whether it is valuable for our CV. 

Getting from education to employment is a hard transition. The International Labour Organization’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026 reports that global youth unemployment reached 12.4% in 2025, equivalent to 67 million unemployed people aged 15–24. Around one in five were also not in employment, education or training.

Today’s student is supposed not only to study but also to intern, volunteer, write articles, attend conferences, gain experience, and develop a personal brand. Not all of them are necessary.

The global race to become employable

The OECD’s 2025 report, based on 690,000 students across 81 countries, found significant gaps between young people’s career aspirations, educational plans and labour-market realities. Career readiness is important. But there is a distinction between being ready for a career and sacrificing your youth to it. 

The volunteer participates in an NGO activity because he or she feels that it is an issue close to their heart. Next comes the question of certification. A person participates in a conference because they are interested in it; then comes the photo op and the network exchange phrase on LinkedIn.

When your online self becomes part of your CV

Social media only makes this worse, with many young people struggling as they compare themselves to their peers. Even before we evaluate our own success, we look at everyone else’s: papers, grants, trips, organizations. So we put one more thing on our list. We do not only compare ourselves to the people sitting next to us but to anyone who succeeds on the internet.

Pakistan makes the pressure particularly visible

In Pakistan, this pressure has a very practical aspect as well.

For many Pakistani young people, opportunities for education and jobs mean opportunities for economic upward mobility.

A report from the Decent Work Country Programme for Pakistan has shown that 8.58 million individuals aged 15-24 years are neither employed nor enrolled in education or training courses, according to the 2020–21 Labour Force Survey of Pakistan. The report has also highlighted that relevancy of skills is a major issue contributing to low numbers of young people in work, education or training. 

It will be easy to comprehend why a Pakistani student feels the need to complete one more internship or certification.

It would be wrong to call it mere “hustle culture”. There is a rational fear behind it.

When opportunities are scarce, qualifications alone do not seem enough. When there are hundreds of applications for one opening, completing something else seems a must.

Thus, we keep on piling up.

An internship gets followed by another one. A certificate becomes five.

When rest begins to feel unproductive

Achievement culture goes beyond being just a career strategy; it alters how we relate to time.

Taking some days off feels like wasting them away. Reading a fiction book seems pointless in comparison to reading something from the industry. Meeting up with friends seems a waste of time in comparison to attending a networking event. A hobby seems pointless if it doesn’t go into one’s portfolio.

There will always be another assignment, test, internship, task, or project. Perhaps the most surprising effect of this kind of culture is being uncomfortable with experiences that cannot be quantified.

Spending an afternoon talking to a friend. Reading a book just because you like it. Going on a walk but not keeping track of the number of steps. Doing a hobby without gathering anything for the portfolio.

It doesn’t make it meaningless.

The person behind the application

The CV is, intentionally, a reduction.

This is the process of reducing a complex individual to mere headings: Education, Experience, Skills, Leadership, Awards, and Publications.

A CV allows someone to know the educational background of the individual and the job held and accomplishments achieved.

It does not allow someone to know the friend who made him/her laugh during a difficult time; it does not reflect any changes in views; it will not assess the curiosity of the individual and the kindness.

None of this negates the idea that young people should be encouraged to remain ambitious. Opportunities should be explored, skills enhanced and opportunities seized. But we need to differentiate between ambition and optimisation. 

We can take internships because we would like to learn and not merely for the sake of looking good on a CV.

We can engage in volunteering because someone else requires our assistance, we can study because we are curious, read because we enjoy, meet people because of human interactions. We can pursue hobbies without converting them to portfolio, and have a day of doing nothing.

Maybe the problem is not an impressive CV after all. Our issue becomes being so skilled at constructing one that we forget the individual who constructed it. A good resume can get us into a room—whether it’s for scholarships, fellowships, an interview or a job— but it can’t help us decide what to do after we’ve walked through the door.

We have to figure that out ourselves.

Not everything has to be constructive in nature. Young people have to prepare for the future, but they shouldn’t have to sacrifice the now just to show that they're prepared.