How To start Career Counselling consultancy firm

[Bikash Chetry]

Hi all,

 

Greetings of the day!

 

Please suggest/ guide/ help me with information on how to proceed on to start a "Career Counselling consultancy firm".

 

 

Regards,

Bikash

Founder

www.eurekabazaar.in

+91 9738275889

 

[Mrithyunjaya Palakurthy]

Hi all,

Please keep me in loop

w/r

mrithyunjaya

 

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[ajeet khamesra]

Hi All,

Please keep me in loop too.

Thanks,

Ajeet

[roopesh shenoy]

Very interesting thoughts - I know this is how traditional career counsellors operate. Although, I personally know a person who focuses on personal interviews and judgement to guide students through finding what they can be good at *and* what they like - and ensure that they lose the fear of failure when they want to try something new. I think that approach works much better than psychometric tests or trying to just tell people what they are good at.

It's important to know the difference between what your passion is, and what you can be good at. A lot of times, these may not be the same. (being good with numbers and ability to work in an investment bank does not mean that you will be happy doing number crunching as a career). 

The problem I feel is the exposure students get which limits their ability to decide for themselves. And the added stigma towards career switching, means people feel its a waste of time exploring alternatives. These are the real problems that need to be attacked. 

This may seem off-topic, but whoever is thinking of starting a career counselling firm, I'm guessing these problems are what motivated them in the first place, so I think it makes sense to examine the situation a bit more. 

Thanks.

Best Regards,

 
Roopesh

On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 1:33 PM, mtnishant <mtni...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some thoughts on it:
Should tell students what career is best for them with scientific proof, so Counseling is an expertise and profession. Some tools are psychometric tests etc.
Still if you are interested in this sector, among many options, one is guidance through information systems, with many websites in India in this space.

With this initial thought, please inform about about your customer, metro / urban / rural, elite / middle class .., and the distribution channel, to help you better.
Do you have sufficient data to attempt it?

Regards
Nishant Goyal

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[Saurabh G]

Dear Bikash,

 

Would like to share some experience which may help you a bit. Its a really emerging area and there is strong need.

 

I started a company called www.dreammentorindia.com (site has expired last week) around three years back in the filed of career consulting (with my friend who is from IIT/IIM). We spent whole six month with extensive research, surveys, designing our programme, creating short stories, profiling various career options and what not. Whom we talk liked the concept a lot.

 

But when we hit the ground the realities were different. There were traditional counsellors who are associated with schools and provide regular counselling. For schools its just a formality and they dont want to invest into a third party. (I am talking about Schools in Delhi). Reaching out schools and getting an appointment was a very tough task until u know someone. Also there are very famous people in this industry who have commercialise this and have a strong hold on schools.

 

We manage to get an appointment in first school and the trustee was very good. He liked the concept and asked us to first present this to parents and teachers and if they like we can start the programme.

 

We did six sessions with parents/ students and teachers . It was very well received and everyone seems to be interested and we were happy. But the real trouble comes then. Although everyone was interested, no one wants to pay. Parents said that they already paid a fee to school and they should fund this exercise. (BTW we kept the fee for counselling very low at INR 500!! Cost of a movie). Then there some parents who as a habit start opposing any fee creating a very bad scene. Soon we realise we are in a mess due to issues between schools and parents.

 

We had quite similar experience in other two schools. We realise that now days schools have start asking for money on name of multiple activities which has left parents furious. They doubt any activity promoted by schools even if the intention is good.

 

We then decided to diversify for software for schools and breakeven within six months more easily. It was less painful :)

 

The idea is not to discourage you but to share some experience I had. I am sure you will do this better then us (and few companies i know have started but closed down). Our preparation and the programme was excellent (at one session a very renowned Indian counsellor was sitting and we were not aware. He was so impressed with our session that he offered us to join him. But at that time we were starting and was excited to test the water ourselves)

 

Do let me know in case you need furtherr help and I will be more then happy to share and help you on same. I always like and enjoyed this part of my startup and still believe that it has got a huge potential.

 

Wish you all the best.

 

Saurabh Gupta

Entrepreneur by Choice

 

Sent using Google Nexus S
(pls ignore spelling mistakes)

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