Kuldeep Singh belives, “Career Counselor is just like a doctor who gives new life to students which is more fulfilling!”

Mr Kuldeep Singh, an expert career counselor has a ten years’ experience in the field and has been serving schools, college students and working professionals. He is currently working as a career counselor with APAR India Group of Institutions. He has a vast knowledge of different career options that are available in the country and has impacted lives of several students.He is confident that career counselling is a field that can better the lives of students of the country and is need of the hour. He loves to help students in taking the right career path and prosper in life.

We at CareerGuide.com interviewed Mr Kuldeep to know more about him and his thoughts regarding career counselling.

He went to give an interview for a job but based on his knowledge, he was motivated for becoming a career counsellor at NIIT Jodhpur.

Mr Kuldeep is a B.Com graduate of batch 2002. To understand more about the industry, he has also done MBA in sales and marketing. This combination has given him a leverage to better understand the needs of the industry and also introduced him to different career options that students can explore. He was first introduced to the field of career counselling in the year 2006 when he was giving an interview for a job but rather was motivated to take up career counselling as a profession with NIIT Jodhpur. The decision was based on his immense knowledge of different careers and his self confidence that could motivate the students in the right direction.

It is important to remain updated of all the new career choices that are coming up daily

He believes that career counselling is a vast field since there are close to 100 industries that have been defined by the industrial experts. To keep up with all the information is very difficult since many new fields are emerging with the advancements that are taking place. However, he keeps himself updated with all the career options through different tools such as internet, reference books, seminars and orientations. He keeps on interacting with his senior colleagues which support him to increase his knowledge in different career options. He believes that a career counselor needs to have an in-depth knowledge about the career options in a particular stream before counselling any student.

A career counselor needs to be very confident and knowledgeable so that he can take the responsibility of guiding a student’s career

Mr Kuldeep’s experience with students has made him confident on how to better solve career problems of the students. He believes that for every career counselor, there is a need of few skills that can help them to connect to the student and act proactively in guiding them to the right career path.  A career counselor needs to be self-confident while having a deep knowledge of different career options. Just knowing the career options is not enough, one should understand the pros and cons related to the career option. This helps the student in assessing the risks and benefits of taking up a career option. Also, an additional positive factor is his body language and ability to make an eye contact with the student. This helps the student in confiding about his passions and aspirations to the career counselor. This forms a major tool to connect to the students. Further, a career counselor can enhance his ability through various books, videos, demos and seminars regarding career options.

A career counselor’s experience is not counted in years but by the number of students he has helped to achieve success!

He further adds that a career counselor needs to be very patient since students need to be guided after understanding their inherent skills and not just by knowing what they want to do. Many a times students are influenced by the peer pressure. Also, a career counselor needs to have vast knowledge of different career options since many are inter-related. A career counselor’s experience cannot be counted in number of years that he has been working but through the number of students he has impacted through his right career guidance. Mr Kuldeep considers Economic Times as a good source of knowledge for all the career counselors. Also, he tells that he has always admired Mr Mukesh Bansal, Centre Director of NIIT Jodhpur, who introduced him to this field. He is highly inspired by the way Mr Mukesh motivates students to achieve their dreams.

He believes that parents still force the students to take up the courses according to the tradition rather than talent

When asked about the role of parents in helping students to take up a career option, he has quite revolutionary views. He believes that even today many parents follow the traditional route of guiding the student. Rather than focussing on skill development of the student, they push them to take admission in particular colleges only. Like in Delhi, most of the parents hope their kids to go to Delhi University to graduate, but they forget that first consideration should be given to the talent and potential of the students. The problem he realises with career counselling is that parents do not consider it as an important element of studies and push their students based on their own limited awareness.

CareerGuide.com is a unique platform for career counselors as well as students. It is one of its kind.

Finally, Mr Kuldeep says that Career Guide is a very good platform for students and career counselors. On one hand, students can have their career problems solved, and on the other, a career counselor can increase his reach to the students. He adds that CareerGuide.com is a great marketplace for career counselors who are about to start their career. Also, it helps them to increase and share knowledge through other career counselors on the platform. He finds CareerGuide.com as very informative career guidance platform and thinks that there is no such other platform which can equal the services.