Counseling on Careers needs to include family’s aspirations and circumstances. Not just student’s aptitude and grades.

I am not a trained career counsellor and SECONDLY I believe that in the last 22 years I have met with thousands of young school leavers and their parents that I can write on this with full conviction.

Most “Career Counsellors” use a couple of key tools to maximize their interaction with the students. These tools are primarily the inferences from an aptitude testing and then a library of guides that indicate that what aptitude link up to various careers. Some also look at the grades that the student has been getting in the subjects being attempted. To most this will look as a good game plan. Now consider…

An aptitude test can only give you a desired result if it has been taken with full sincerity. Even then there are several instances where the aptitude testing mechanism which has been developed in another culture and circumstances actually give very inaccurate results. One student told me that he consulted two vendors of aptitude testing and both came up with contrasting results. My son who is in a reputed private residential school showed me the result of his own aptitude test which indicated low numeracy skills and hence did-not give him any recommendation for the areas that he wanted to pursue. I found that to be odd since he is amongst the top 5% of his class in Maths and Computers and so I immediately disregarded the test… However it got me thinking on what if many parents and students plan their careers based on inaccurate aptitude tests. It is possible that the test was not attempted with the desired seriousness or the way the questions were framed didn’t have the desired goal.

Hence, my suggestion to parents who do want to get their wards to take aptitude tests is to follow what they do with pathological testing. Very often if one lab test comes up with a result, we do try and repeat the test from another lab at some other time. Then both the results are compared. The lab tests are like the aptitude testing as they allow the specialist to come up with his own diagnosis using the test results.

There are career counsellors who may agree that the aptitude testing can be faulty but then do they advise the student to undertake another testing from another vendor! If they take their counseling seriously and believe that the leads should be accurate, they must cross check the results this way in all cases.

Another HUGE mistake that career counsellors make is disregarding the family circumstances that come into play. They do need to also have a detailed session with each of the parents and understand the career aspirations.

The world today is not as clinical and certainly it doesn’t offer equal opportunities and complete fair play. We may want it to but it doesn’t. The son of a Doctor (or of Lawyer, CA, Architect…) is likely to get a significant head-start in the same occupations and at the same time many young students do-not want to pursue the same profession as their parents which sometimes is due to a closer observation of the profession at their homes and the fact that “the grass looks greener with other occupations”. The need to understand that there are pros and cons in all occupations. A closer counselling of the student keeping practical circumstances, idealism and aptitude will do the trick.

Parents donot want to “impose” but they almost always forget to “expose” their children to actual professionals in the desired occupations.

The family circumstances and aspirations are important also for others. I have now done a small sampling that is broken up on the various regions in India and communities in India and it helps me with any career advise. By looking at the surname and family background, I can say with 90% certainty if the student will study overseas and if yes, in which country and whether he would like to settle there or return back to India and then to be a professional seeking a job or will want to be self-employed at some time in his or her life. A boy who has parents as entrepreneurs and in business, tends to be a little more “risk taking” and could possibly want to be self employed at some time in his life. Some career options will allow self-employment easily while others will not. Factors such as 1)is it a joint family, 2)are there elders other than immediate parents who have a larger say in the way things happen and hence need counseling, 3)is the student eldest in the family, 4)does he have siblings, 5)is there a migration history in the family and 4)financial situation… need to be given foremost attention.

With the risk of being accused of gender bias, I want to remind that often the aspirations of an Indian family for a career for a girl differs from a boy. Not saying that they donot want to invest in careers for girls but it is just that they often want a different type of a career for a girl and want the girl to be sensitized to this. Some parents believe that the career counsellors who base their advise only on aptitude testing and college requirements are doing a disservice if they donot understand the realities of today’s world and Indian circumstances. Girls do very well in several careers and do better than boys. On the other hand there are careers which seem more suited for boys. Most importantly, most Indian parents firmly believe that girls should get a portable skill set and should be professionally able to survive on her own in any adversity. A life of a girl changes several times in a short few years after college in India and maybe even in the world. I do believe that this is a just thought.

Now let me give a few real-life case studies from recent days that I have come across where I firmly believe that the counseling was inadequate.

• A student who loves John Grisham’s courtroom dramas decided early in his life to become a lawyer. However when he first visited an Indian courthouse he immediately decided that this is not what he expected.
• A student took up Hotel Management just because of the attractive brochures and the impression that it leads to a glamorous life. I asked him to find out about the stipends that the interns get and the salaries that even hotels like Oberois and Taj pay to fresh Hotel Graduates. He just couldnot believe it.