You can read Part I here: Explore the Journey of Mindler Partner & Ex-IAF Group Capt. Yogesh Pai-Part 1
Q – How do you think the Roadmap Tool helps you?
A – “The Roadmap is very, very important. I try to be innovative and efficient and keep improving my work output.
In the first session I conducted by myself, I do the report interpretation, and I discuss the five careers with the student. I also insist to the student that these careers are not binding on you. I am not going to force anything on the student so that itself is a great motivator for the child. There is a mindset where the children don’t want to go to a counsellor because they feel he/she will force them to take up a career.
The moment you say that you won’t do anything against their wishes, it opens up the floodgates for the child to become more receptive and responsive to career counselling.
Coming to the careers specifically, I keep scrolling down the recommended careers till the child says yes or maybe for those careers and it is not an outright no.
Then I explain to the child how to utilize the Mindler Career Library. How to do the research, including getting down to specifics as to where the child would like to do their 11th and 12th, graduation, whether within the country or abroad, and where they would like to do the post-graduation. And then we go on to what kind of career they are looking at, what is the industry you’re looking at, is it going to be a job/business/start up. I get personally involved in the specifics and that is what attracts the minds of the parents and the children.”
Q – So you have come up with your own way of utilizing the Roadmap to encourage the student to do a lot of research.
A- “Yes, I involve the child so much that the second session is conducted by the student for me and the parents.
I give them three to four minutes on each career, as to what they understand about that career, and then an elimination round from five to four options, four to three, three to two, etc. So it becomes a well-informed rejection and finally a well-informed choice.”
Q – When you were using the Dashboard yourself, you must have gone through a section called Profile and Insights. Here we talk about lots of career matches, rankings given by students, etc. How do you utilize that particular information?
A – “Here I will make an honest confession since I have not done the Advanced course, I was completely at sea as far as these things are concerned. Finally, I said, Okay, I will interpret it myself.
What I do is, I go through all that and I see the commonalities as far as the choice of the students is concerned. Once my activity starts, the first thing is the student has to reprioritize their careers.”
Once again I tell them, “It is not binding on you because you have reprioritized without doing the research. Let’s forget all this. You tell me what are the careers you are willing to research, whether it’s a yes or a maybe, and then at the end of the second session, we will reprioritize positions 1 to 5.”
“That is how I go about teasing the minds of these children and making them work on their research very honestly. So that they make a well-informed choice, and hereafter never in their life can they turn back and say, “I didn’t know about this and that.”
I read out the motivator ranking to the child and the parent, and say this is what motivates the child.
For example, if patriotism is in the top three I say this child should join the Armed Forces. If everything else is matching, that is. But if the patriotism is on the lower side, say seven, eight, nine, then the child is open to being a global person. I mean they don’t want to be bound by countries. They are willing to go abroad and settle abroad, and have a career there.
Similarly, for every factor out of the ten motivator factors, I have my own interpretation and I interlink with a five dimensional analysis of the child. And then I say because of these motivator rankings, these are the careers we are looking at maybe at a domestic level or international.”
Q – How challenging was it to promote your organization? What strategies did you try?
A- “I won’t take credit completely for this. Yes, my credibility is something that attracts people to me. But unless I had a solid backup from Mindler, Because finally, the center of gravity lies with Mindler.
My entire career guidance program is built around the Assessment, which is the psychometric tool provided by Mindler.
Also, as far as the user-friendliness of the interface is concerned, the technical backup is from Mindler. Unless that works smoothly, my credibility has no standing. So I tell my clients, yes it is my credibility that has drawn you to me, however, the fruit of it that we are going to see is because of Mindler.
That is why the only way the partnership can work is if I do my job correctly and Mindler provides a technical backup correctly, and I must say, I’ve never had a problem as far as the technical backup is concerned.”
Q – What is one piece of advice that you would like to give upcoming career coaches or professionals wanting to be career coaches?
A – “I would like to tell them that we must accept the fact that the center of gravity of this entire exercise lies with the psychometric assessment.
Now, it is very important for the student to be absolutely honest in answering the assessment. It is very challenging. I have formulated my own Dos and Don’ts for the student and I insist upon talking to them before they take the test. I make it very clear to the student that the more honest you are in answering the assessment, the more accurate is the report, and the better we’ll be able to help you in making the best career choice for you.”
Q – What are the other resources apart from the Mindler Career library that you use for your research?
A – “I found the Mindler Career Library so useful and so extensive, that I never actually required anything else.
I do clarify to my students that the Mindler Career library gets updated once in six months. So I tell my students to please go on to the website of the respective organization to get the latest update regarding important dates and timings as far as admission tests or form submissions are concerned.”
Q – With your breadth of experience in career coaching, what is a tip you would like to share with all career coaches?
A – “About three and a half years of career coaching, my previous company had about 50 students, 40 with Mindler so close to a century of students.
It’s a continuous and highly dynamic process. As a career coach, you need to keep updating and upgrading yourself. There isn’t a one formula solution for your performance as a good career coach. You need to keep updating yourself.”
Q – Very well said. We are in the last leg of our interview. We were eager to know what you consider the two best achievements you are proud of as a career coach?
A – “Last year, that is 2021, on the last weekend of June I did my ICCC Foundation Course and it was a milestone day for me. 9th July, I enrolled as a Mindler Partner. I was a very shaky starter, and I started with the Starter Quarterly. It was six packages and I was very underconfident.
I had just finished my first two students and at that time, a person in my building contacted me and asked if I could coach his son. I agreed and asked him what the problem was. He said he has finished engineering and is sitting at home.
I spoke to the boy and he found my approach very interesting. This is why I stress innovating and getting the attention of a student. I always tell the parents that I am not interested unless the child himself/herself says yes to career guidance. After I finished his session, his was the first testimonial I got and it was brilliant. This child had done engineering out of just peer pressure.
And it was a big learning experience for me because I asked him, what did you want to become in your life? He said I want to become a doctor. I asked him, I asked him. Why do you want to? What inspired you? Do you know what his answer was?
The movie Munnabhai MBBS. He said he didn’t get the marks required at the time and faced peer pressure which led to him opting for engineering.
And after finishing engineering, he realized that is not like the subject at all. What was the next best thing to do? His confidence level was in his boots.
I conducted the five-dimensional analysis and explained to him that God had given him so many strengths. He gave me 90 percent accuracy feedback for the report and a 5-star rating for all 3 sessions I did with him. His life was transformed after this, I still run into him in the building once in a while and he is doing very well. He knows what he is made for and has undergone a transformation from an introvert staying at home to a motivated and bright individual who spends 16 hours a day outdoors or working.”
Conclusion
That was an interview packed with personal experiences from the dynamic Group Captain Mr. Yogesh Pai. Stay tuned for more conversations with ICCC coaches and Mindler Partners to help you gain a bird’s eye view of what your career coaching enterprise could look like with Mindler. Explore the Mindler Partner Platform yourself and transform your career coaching venture.
