He watches classmates who spent fewer hours coding walk into multinational companies and mid-sized tech firms, while his own applications remain unanswered or end with a silent rejection email. Every morning, the same question comes back: Is something wrong with his CGPA, his skills, or even the name of his university?

Rahat is far from alone. Thousands of fresh CSE graduates across Bangladesh find themselves in the same position: technically capable, equipped with projects and resumes, yet struggling to become visible to recruiters. The question appears repeatedly in career groups, LinkedIn discussions, and university alumni communities: if I have the skills and projects, why am I not getting hired?

To understand the answer, I spoke to three professionals who see different stages of the hiring process. Ms. Mayesha Musharrat has experience in HR at a well-known multinational FMCG company and now holds a senior HR position at a growing tech brand.

Ms. Rayeedah Islam previously worked in technical recruitment at SELISE, where she was directly involved with engineering resumes and shortlisting candidates.

Mr. Khalid Shifullah, Manager in the IT Department at Berger Paints Bangladesh, brings nearly a decade of experience in the technology industry, with extensive exposure to enterprise software, automation, and the rapidly evolving field of AI. As someone who has worked closely with, guided, and mentored engineers throughout his career, he offers a valuable perspective on what organisations actually expect from junior engineers once they enter the workplace.

The three professionals occupy different positions in the hiring pipeline, yet their observations converge remarkably closely. Ms. Mayesha approaches candidates from HR and organisational perspectives. Ms. Rayeedah brings technical recruitment experience. Mr. Khaled looks at candidates from the perspective of an engineer and manager.

Beyond skills

Many fresh graduates assume that the solution to unemployment is learning one more framework, adding another technical certification, or filling their resumes with more keywords. Ms. Mayesha’s experience challenges that approach.

Ms. Mayesha said, “Everyone knows PowerPoint or Excel now, and even if they don’t, AI fills that gap in minutes.”

In her experience across both an MNC and a technology-focused employer, technical proficiency by itself is no longer a strong differentiator. What can make a candidate stand out is leadership, although she emphasised that leadership is often misunderstood by graduates.

Ms. Mayesha explained, “I don’t mean the person who talks the most. I mean someone who can uplift others around them.”

For a graduate, leadership does not necessarily mean becoming the president of a major club or dominating group discussions. It can mean taking responsibility for a team, helping others perform better, organising an activity, or creating something that brings people together.

She also highlighted the ability to organise people and follow through on an idea.

“This could be as simple as taking the initiative to run an event, or starting something like a book club because they were passionate about reading.”

The size of the achievement is not necessarily the important part. What matters is demonstrating that you can take an idea, bring people together, and actually complete it.

Another quality she considers important is coachability.

“Fresh graduates aren’t expected to walk in knowing everything, but the ones who stand out are the ones who take feedback well, adapt quickly, and genuinely want to grow.”

For a fresher, this may be more important than knowing an additional programming language. Employers understand that graduates have limited professional experience. What they need to see is whether the candidate can learn, adapt, accept criticism, and improve.

What this means specifically for CSE graduates

Rahat already has what most CSE graduates are told they need: a CGPA, GitHub repositories, and several projects. So what actually separates one candidate from another?

Ms. Mayesha said, “Don’t try to compete with AI on things it’s already good at, like writing basic code.”

Simply being able to produce code is becoming less distinctive. The more valuable skill is knowing whether the code is actually appropriate.

“Knowing whether the code is actually right, secure, and the right fit for the problem. That kind of judgment only comes from really understanding the fundamentals,” she explained.

A candidate should be able to explain why a particular architecture was selected, what trade-offs were considered, what security issues exist, and what could be improved.

Ms. Mayesha pointed to the growing number of people who use AI to build small applications that solve personal problems. A journaling application, a productivity tool, or another small personal project can demonstrate initiative when it exists because the person genuinely wanted to solve a problem. The distinction is important. A tutorial project demonstrates that someone can follow instructions. A personal project demonstrates curiosity and initiative. Ms. Mayesha also introduced another concept that is rarely taught in a CSE curriculum: taste.

Ms. Mayesha said, “By that I mean the instinct for knowing what ‘good’ actually looks like, not just what works.”

AI can produce something functional, but functionality alone does not guarantee that a product is intuitive, attractive, or enjoyable to use. Developing this sense of quality requires deliberately studying well-designed products and understanding why they work. She also emphasised business understanding.

Ms. Mayesha said, “Understand business. Ask what it truly needs, and be able to explain trade-offs clearly to people who aren’t technical.”

Her overall message can be summarised in four qualities: judgment, initiative, taste, and business acumen.

What actually gets a resume shortlisted?

Ms. Rayeedah Islam provides another important perspective because her experience in technical recruitment brought her closer to the actual shortlisting process.

She does not suggest that CGPA is irrelevant.

“CGPA is obviously an important factor as technical skill application is the bread and butter of the tech trade,” she added.

Academic performance can demonstrate a baseline of technical competence and discipline. But CGPA alone rarely determines who gets hired.

According to Ms. Rayeedah, “Things that make a resume stand out are extracurriculars like competitive programming or displays of real-life projects that they have worked on by collaborating with real teams, or even workable relevant applications and sites that they can feature on GitHub.”

The emphasis on real teamwork is particularly important. A project developed with other people can demonstrate communication, collaboration, responsibility, and the ability to work within someone else’s codebase. These are experiences that a completely isolated university assignment may not demonstrate. The changing technology landscape has also increased the importance of adaptability.

Ms. Rayeedah said, “With the introduction of AI and a highly saturated market, it is important for fresh CSE grads to have diverse tech stacks in their skillset to be available for the market.”

Her advice to graduates is to research the companies and industries they want to enter while continuing to build their skills and apply for jobs.

She added, “Fresh grads can research products and projects of companies they aspire to apply for, and gradually build themselves by continuously learning and growing, while continuing to apply for the roles or companies they desire.”

For candidates targeting specific industries, she also recommends developing domain knowledge. Ms. Rayeedah said, “If young tech grads want to aspire in certain industries like fintech, then having additional knowledge, in this case financial models, analysis, is also a big bonus.”

The broader lesson is that technical knowledge becomes more valuable when combined with an understanding of the industry where that knowledge will be applied.

What happens after you’re hired?

Mr. Khaled Shifullah offers the perspective of someone on the technical side of the organisation. His experience with enterprise software, automation, and AI-driven projects gives him a different view of what junior engineers need.

“A lot of the boring stuff is basically gone now. Boilerplate code, looking up syntax, even the first pass at fixing a bug, AI handles most of that.”

That may sound intimidating, but it also creates an opportunity. If AI is handling repetitive work, engineers can focus more on understanding systems, making decisions, solving meaningful problems, and taking ownership.

Mr. Khaled added, “So what’s actually left for a fresh engineer to bring to the table is judgment. Can they tell if the code AI wrote is even the right approach?”

He emphasised that engineers must understand how their code interacts with the wider system.

“Writing a function that works in isolation means nothing if it breaks something else three layers down.”

He also advised graduates to use AI without blindly trusting it.

“Your fundamentals need to be stronger now, not weaker. If you don’t actually understand what’s happening under the hood, you won’t catch it when the AI gets something wrong,” he adds.

Mr. Khaled emphasises another perspective, “Try to understand the business side of things, not just the code. Knowing which problem is even worth solving is becoming more valuable than solving it fast.”

This is striking because the same idea appears in Ms. Mayesha’s comments from a recruitment perspective as well. Business awareness is not simply an upper management perspective; it is becoming increasingly important to technical professionals as well.

What makes a fresh graduate stand out?

“Honestly, it’s rarely the person with the longest skills list on their CV,” Mr. Khalid answered.

Instead, he emphasised ownership. He looks for someone who investigates why a bug happened instead of applying a quick fix and moving on.

He also values communication with non-technical people. An engineer who can explain a technical issue clearly to someone without a technical background is easier to trust with responsibility. Another quality is the ability to handle messy environments. Mr. Khaled said, “Real codebases are messy, old code, missing documentation, vendors who take forever to reply.”

University projects are usually clean and clearly defined. Real workplaces are not. Graduates who can deal with ambiguity, incomplete information, legacy systems, and external dependencies are more likely to succeed.

Finally, he values initiative. Mr. Khalid said, “Side projects, learning things on their own time, that kind of thing tells me someone’s actually curious, not just doing the minimum to get a degree.”

The first six to twelve months

Mr. Khaled’s advice for a new engineer is straightforward. He recommends becoming genuinely competent in one technology stack before attempting to learn several at once.

He also encourages graduates to spend significant time reading other people’s code.

“Most of the job, especially early on, is understanding systems someone else built, not writing your own from scratch,” he adds.

New engineers should also ask why software exists instead of focusing exclusively on what it does. Clear bug reports and commit messages may seem insignificant, but they communicate professionalism and make collaboration easier. Finally, graduates should take feedback seriously because habits developed during the first year can remain for a long time.

“None of this is groundbreaking advice, to be honest. It mostly comes down to staying curious and not skipping the fundamentals,” he concludes.

What the three perspectives tell us

All three point towards judgment rather than raw technical output. In an environment where AI can generate functional code, simply producing code is less valuable than understanding whether it is correct, secure, maintainable, and appropriate.

They also emphasise genuine initiative rather than checklist-driven activity. Five tutorial projects may be less convincing than one small application created to solve a real problem.

Communication is another recurring theme. Graduates need to explain technical ideas to people who may not have technical backgrounds. They also need to function effectively in teams and navigate environments that are not perfectly structured.

Business understanding appears repeatedly as well. Engineers who understand why a product exists, which problem it solves, and what trade-offs matter to the organisation can contribute beyond simply completing technical tasks.

Interestingly, none of the three professionals identified CGPA as the decisive factor in hiring. None suggested that collecting more GitHub repositories alone would solve the problem. None argued that simply learning more frameworks is the answer.

So what should Rahat actually do?

Rahat probably does not need another project simply for the sake of having another project. Instead, he should choose one or two existing projects and learn them deeply enough to defend every decision behind them. He should understand the architecture, trade-offs, limitations, security considerations, and possible improvements.

He should also find something to lead, even if it is small. Organising an event, running a study group, starting a community initiative, or leading a personal project can demonstrate the ability to take responsibility and follow through.

He should build something because he genuinely wants it to exist rather than because an online list told him to. AI can be part of that process, but he should develop enough technical understanding to question its output rather than blindly accepting it.

He should practise explaining technical concepts to non-technical people. If he cannot explain what his project does and why it matters without relying on technical jargon, he has more work to do.

He should study products, not just code. Understanding what makes software intuitive and useful will gradually develop the “taste” Ms. Mayesha described.

He should also become comfortable with messy, ambiguous work. Open-source contributions, real-world projects, or poorly defined problems can provide experiences that clean university assignments cannot.

Most importantly, he should not stop applying while waiting to become “ready.” Learning and job searching should happen simultaneously. The job market Rahat is entering is not necessarily asking graduates to know everything. It is increasingly asking them to demonstrate something different.

CGPA can help establish academic competence. Projects can demonstrate the ability to build. But judgment, initiative, ownership, communication, taste, and the ability to connect technology with real business needs are what can distinguish one graduate from hundreds of technically similar candidates.

For Rahat, and for every fresh CSE graduate lying awake wondering what they are missing, the answer is probably not a sixth project or a longer skills section. The real shift is to stop asking, “How many things can I put on my CV?” and start asking, “What can I prove I am capable of doing?”

That is the difference between looking qualified on paper and actually becoming employable.