Creating demand beats waiting for the job

The Scope Trap

Muzamil starts by laying out a problem he encounters regularly. Graduates message him constantly asking a single question: what is the scope of my field? Computer science, psychology, engineering. They want to know if they will get a job. Ali Ilyas relates immediately. He hears the same question from students considering psychology or looking at specializations. Both agree this framing is fascinating and infuriating at once.

The underlying anxiety is clear. Students are choosing fields based on what job will happen, not what problems they want to solve. “A child who is choosing on the basis of what job is going to happen,” Ali says. Muzamil pushes back. If a degree guaranteed a job, doctors would never be unemployed. But they are. In Pakistan, an MBBS does not guarantee anything. You earn poorly until you specialize, and specialization takes years. The degree is a prerequisite, not a promise.

Productivity, Not Jobs

Here is where the two reframe the conversation. “What are your thoughts on the word scope,” Muzamil asks. Ali’s answer cuts through the noise: the real problem is productivity. “Scope is the engineering of Pakistan,” he says. Theoretically great, practically broken. But the issue is not the field. The issue is whether you are actually solving problems and creating value.

Muzamil expands this. “A job market is one thing, but a productivity market is different.” You can bring value to the world, or you can go to a government job and drink tea all day. One makes you productive. The other does not. “Until and unless you don’t pursue that thing, you’re not going to be a productive member of the society,” Ali says.

When Muzamil pursued content and problem-solving, people saw his enthusiasm. He generated demand for himself. Same with Asad, a medical professional who built an Instagram following and can now take patients because he demonstrated passion and connected with people. The number of followers does not define your competency, but it signals to the market that you care about your work.

The Demand Generation Problem

The breakthrough insight: scope-obsessed graduates are not asking the right question. They should ask, what problem am I going to solve? Then, who has that problem? The market exists. Consumers are sitting there, even if they don’t know it yet. This is especially true in fields like psychology, where mental health problems are rampant but underaddressed.

Muzamil shares an example. An Instagram follower who built an entire gardening business. It started as a passion, became a page, then became a full business. That is demand generation. You solve a problem, you show up consistently, and people notice.

Ali adds the economic view. When supply exceeds demand, price falls. Red Bull did not wait for demand to be known. They went to events, gave product away free, flooded the market. They created awareness and demand. Then they could charge. Content creators face the same math. Free work first, often unpaid internships. This builds skill and visibility. Then opportunity comes.

The Risk You Have to Take

A graduate who opens a clinic without existing clients faces a simple question: how do I get clients if I have no place to bring them? The answer is you take the risk. You open the clinic. You build the platform first. You invest in visibility and credibility before the clientele shows up.

“Taking risks and just pushing yourself to do certain things that you think are scary at times can really pay off,” Ali says. “And it might not, but then you learn and it might pay off next time. You tweak your failure and hit the market again.”

Muzamil nods. This is where self-employment becomes the choice for many. You do not get a guaranteed paycheck, but you are not waiting for someone else to decide your worth.

Specialization and Personality

The conversation turns to a tension. Some fields require deep specialization and formal training. Surgery, medicine, therapy. You cannot fake these. But you also cannot succeed if you only have the credential. A surgeon with good training is the minimum. A surgeon who talks about his work, teaches, writes gets more patients.

Ali frames it as “jack of all trades, master of one.” You specialize deep, but you do not stay siloed. Muzamil was not born knowing content creation. He interned, volunteered, worked in social media strategy. He picked up project management. These skills matter as much as the core expertise.

Invention and Discovery

Ali shares a Stoic quote that shaped him. “What constitutes the true self is as much a process of invention as it is a process of discovery.” All our lives we search for ourselves. But we invent ourselves too. Invention means trying different directions, reading different books, talking to different people. You discover the path by inventing yourself along the way.

Muzamil’s closing thought: do not hold your plans too tight. Plan, but leave wiggle room. Most successful people do not start where they end. Plan A rarely becomes the success. Plan Z often does. The graduates who say CSS or nothing, engineering or nothing, these people waste the preparation they did. The ones who say I studied for public service, I learned economics, I could do NGO work, government, international development, these people land on their feet.

“Don’t plan too close to your heart,” Muzamil says. “Always start with plan A and plan Z is successful. Wiggle room. Give yourself wiggle room.”