Being in the space of corporate careers, talent and people – many friends, family members and colleagues often request me to guide their children on their career and higher education choices. I willingly make time, as I enjoy doing it.

The first question, I ask them as aspirants is, “In your own assessment what are you good at? and what do you love doing?” Most start by answering what academic subjects they are good at and they straight jump into explaining their potential career choices, such as – wanna become a software engineer, medical and healthcare professional, sports manager, chartered accountant, sales and marketing professional, human resource professional, etc. What I find interesting is that most of them are clear and already opinionated about what they want to do, which is a good thing. But what worries me is that most of them haven’t tested themselves in the extra curricular space as a student and have given very little importance to finding out what their aptitude is, what they love doing or what makes them happy. Please note most of these people are from middle class and it’s higher strata of the economic segment of our country. They have access to good education at reasonably decent schools and colleges.

This makes me wonder about the educational framework of our country and the early counselling they receive in school, college and at home. Making children focus more on choosing career tracks that are more linked to achieving monetary prosperity versus matching their career choices to their aptitude and happiness, begs a question, or rather say many questions. Coz then later in life, somewhere down the road they end up realising they are in a rat race and not a career.

I keep thinking about it and wish to come up with a solution for this. What do you think?