It Pains...
>> Monday, December 28, 2009
DO YOU REALLY KNOW YOURSELF??
Why do people need to run to find a job? I believe the employees should be employable enough to make the job seekers run after them.... and yes with a hefty amount of money.
I love to put things in this way but the question is where to start from? Shouldn’t every prospective employee start with picking the right job? Or should this quest go back in history when he has to decide about his career path, skills and inventories. It has widely been acknowledged by pundits that a man (I am not gender biased and I believe the statement should be man and woman) should know his strength, weakness and interest in the process of knowing himself. We all keep saying that an interviewer wants to see how much the interviewee knows himself, but do you really give a damn on self realization. I have been there and listened to HR specialists talking about how the employees get stuck in a regular job exercise when they are asked to write a page on themselves. So we need to ask the question once again- are we sure we know ourselves?
Here is where the issue of employability or the issue of being rightfully employed for a job arises. I would like to share my experience with one of the best career assessment tests I had known and took up-The Dheya Career Assesment test. I have to admit that I know myself better now and I am confident about what I speak of myself. Not only the test helped me realize my strong areas but in the process I came to know about my weaknesses as well. The test is scientifically made and will really give your brain a good exercise. It revolves around discovering every aspect of one’s personality, interests and abilities. It’s not just a test but an overall experience of knowing oneself. As a prospective HR manager I keep stressing on the words know thyself and be employable, I suppose that it is even a bigger problem faced by the youth of the country than unemployment. And I would like to stress on the subject that it is not the first assessment I took up. The Dheya report is an exhaustive one giving a complete overview of aspects mentioned above. Many of us would agree on the poor quality of report provided with other test providers who promise to be very effective and suck large amount of money from the customers. The write up might sound like an extremely happy and contended customer but then again, yes that is me, blissfully contended. I would recommend that every person should have a great philosopher or a mentor to them who guides their career path and other fields in life successfully. But when a person can’t find one, he learns from his experience. He tries and fails, he tries again and fails and then he decides to move on. The journey may not be always the right path. The third alternative is taking up an assessment to know yourself better from a quality provider just like Dheya did for me. I am pursuing my MBA degree from Symbiosis. I would also like to share how my friends took some test and ended up yet undecided on their future course of action in their second semester. But I boast that I got an edge on them. I know what I am good at, I know my limitations and I know the area I am not supposed to venture into.
I just regret one thing. There was a time when I wasted one precious year of my life trying to aim for the AIIMS or the other prestigious medical schools. Only if I had gone through my test or I had a real mentor, I would not have been lost. The second mistake I did was by taking B.Sc as my graduation subject. Had I made the corrective measures in time I would have been at ease and better-off in my B-school now. I share my failures because I want the readers to take a note and may be a lesson from them.
When in doubt ask questions, when you don’t know yourself make an attempt. The attempt might be feeble, but it makes sure you take the first step to improve your own employability. And yes there will be a world running after you. That’s how business leaders evolve - by taking the right decision for themselves and then for their organization.
Posted By: Anisha(Dheya Assessment taker)
IIM -A Falls in line.. Changes the Placement Process
Placement season for the batch of 2008-10 of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad (IIM-A), could stretch over a month with the institute scrapping the existing Day Zero, Day One system.
The new system — cohort placement system — will be spread over continuous weekends (Friday to Sunday), beginning second week of February next year. Each of these cohorts would host firms offering similar roles and opportunities. The decision of which cohort would be invited and in what sequence will depend on the preference of the students from the batch.
"The cohort-based process is a longer placement process but with significant advantages. The move essentially aims at a better match-making process, ensuring a better fit between the students and the firms," said professor Saral Mukherjee, faculty chairman, IIM-A placements.
This is an excellent move on the part of IIM – A, the rush of acquiring talent on day ZERO left the employers very little time to make a choice. Same was the case with the students. With IIMs doing away with the day ZERO system its actually the first time it has tried to emulate what other institutes like SIBM or XLRI have been doing to manage their placement process.
Reinventing Education.. but will the educationists listen..
>> Saturday, December 26, 2009
A wonderful article written by Sudhakar Ram, published in Economic Times on Dec 17th 2009, displaying his passion towards the education reforms. While Sudhakar Ram has asked some serious questions on the current education which Dheya shares, it’s important for the regulators/ educationist who advice the government to listen and understand what we would like to say and contribute..Read on…
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. Albert Einstein
Nobody can argue that the world has changed dramatically in recent years, and continues to change with amazing speed. Yet, we have not changed the basic approach to educating our children for the past 200 years.
Think about the changes our children will face before they retire from the working world in 60 years. Will our current approach to education be adequate to equip these children to face the emerging world?
Can we continue with our assembly-line approach to teaching our children, rather than acknowledging and nurturing the unique gifts and talents that each one of them represents? Should education be restricted, primarily, to the first 20 years of our lives? Or should the focus shift to life-long learning?
Alvin Toffler, in ‘The Third Wave’, describes mass education as being built on the Industrial Age factory model to teach basic reading, writing and arithmetic, a bit of history and other subjects — the overt curriculum. Beneath it was the covert curriculum that was far more basic. It consisted of three courses — punctuality, obedience and repetitive work — the basic training requirements to produce reliable, productive factory workers. Will the 21st century world require just these capabilities?
Howard Gardner’s Project Zero at Harvard discovered that up to age four, almost all children are at genius level, in terms of the multiple frames of intelligence — spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, mathematical, intrapersonal, and linguistic.
But by age 20, the genius level proportion of the tested population dropped to 2%.
We are educating the intelligence out of our children. Instead, we need to nurture and develop the multiple frames of intelligence within our schools and colleges. We need to fuel imagination, which Einstein said is more important than knowledge.
The current system of education — both at the school and university level — assumes that a finite amount of ‘knowledge’ is available. The emphasis is on cramming as much of this knowledge as possible into the available years of education.
But this paradigm does not work for the 21st century; the quantum of knowledge has become so vast that it would take several lifetimes even to master a single discipline. What we need is children learning how to learn and provide facilities for life-long, just-in-time learning. In our era of super-specialization, we’re developing groups of people who understand their own fields extremely well, but tend to be challenged
when it comes to communicating and integrating with groups in other disciplines.
Everyday people tend to think we don’t have the ability — or even the right — to understand, let alone challenge, the specialists. In this quest for ‘know-how’ we are losing the ‘know-what’ — the meaning and purpose of life, the context for applying all this knowledge.
Our rapid depletion of Earth’s resources may well be due to an emphasis on technology or know-how, rather than wisdom — deciding whether it is the right thing for us as humanity.
The challenges in India are even more acute. Of the 200+ million children of school going age, 35% drop out after primary school and another 50% after upper primary. Of the 20 million youth of graduating age, only around three million actually make it through college, and less than 500,000 are deemed employable. We have an urgent need to rethink education on many fronts.
First, we need to nurture love for learning in primary schools. There are well-researched systems — like the Montessori Method — that are completely child-centered and make the learning process joyful and effective. Newer methods of teaching can combine video-based learning with teacher-facilitated games that develop the child’s natural talents.
Primary schools should equip children with basic life skills — reading, writing, arithmetic, environmental science, health and hygiene and social/inter-personal skills.
Second, the focus of upper primary schools should be (a) to teach kids how to learn and (b) to support them discover their natural aptitude. It is critical to offer a good grounding in the scientific approach to learning. Learning should go beyond knowing facts and figures. Children need to be shown how to be self-aware, and to examine their own lives: their life stages, life purpose.
Third, high school curricula should focus more on building concrete skills and capabilities in multiple disciplines, rather than stressing exam results. For example, a team could take on the design, construction and installation of solar-based power systems in their own schools — addressing the technical, financial and social aspects of the project — under expert guidance. Another team could focus on reducing child abuse in their local area.
In the process, teams would understand the theoretical constructs and develop the critical thinking skills
needed.
Fourth, universities of the future should offer life-long learning modules that allow people to acquire knowledge just when they need it.
Given the need for organizations to continually learn and evolve, we need to change work patterns to combine learning and working — for instance, by having a four-day work week with another day or two a week devoted to learning and experimenting with new ideas.
University professors should be encouraged to pursue research in multiple disciplines and to act as facilitators in their students’ learning process. Practitioners from industry should be encouraged to act as guides and mentors to students taking on specific courses.
Education is a pressing problem across the globe. However, the challenges in India are so great that it presents us with the greatest opportunity to innovate. Our size and variety are an ideal platform to try many new models of education that would help us take the lead in the 21st century.
It is up to us as parents and educators to make this shift happen. Let’s have the courage to move ahead — the future of our children and our country is at stake.
Long live the earth.
Read more...
DHEYA the 4th Idiot – 3 Idiots evolved it!!
Contributed by our Jharkhand Associate : Rajeev Ranjan (rajeev.ranjan@dheya.com). Rajeev Puts Dheya as the 4th Idiot trying to help students turn successful…read on…
People always say movies are always unrealistic and it’s a drama but the Irony is they always tend to follow what movies show cast. Following the latest hairstyles, the costumes, even the look alike it’s all about what people go on crazy to adopt. The funniest part is they miss or ignore the inspiration and teaching which movies try to showcase. Whether it be Lakshya or 3 Idiots they make lots of sense for both the old gen and the young blood.
What Aamir khan says in 3 idiots “ Don’t run after scoring marks or getting a degree or do things for sake of doing or being successful, just believe in excellence in whatever you do and then Success will itself run for you” . Doesn’t he justify his words by being an excellent, top league actor for whom success is immaterial as it follows him automatically because of his excellence? The essence of his real flick is to follow the Career path which makes you feel happy and where your interest lies. Just don’t go on follow the conventional Careers what your parents decide right at the time you are born and they dream about you, your relatives and friends suggest or what the latest trend is. Believe me the reason is you can excel in the career path you choose for yourself not your parents. The root cause of all the failures or drop outs in education or jobs is the selection of wrong Career path. And you won’t believe it is the only reason which is making the so called workforce “Unemployable”.
It is there where the 4th Idiot “Dheya.com” comes into picture. Why the term 4th Idiot you all will be thinking so? The reason is 3 Idiots revolve around making the right Career choice which automatically evolves the 4th Idiot “Dheya.com” as it is the only Organization operating with the mission of making the young generation choose the right and sensible career choice to improve employability and their productivity. It’s high time that they must go and follow Mr. Madhavan(the 2nd Idiot) and just out spoke about the career they feel is appropriate for them. But it’s a big truth that it is quite difficult to decide the right Career choice both for the child and parents and it is where “Dheya.com” acts as a facilitator to suggest you the right Career path on scientifically proven and technical grounds. They don’t only suggest that but also plan and draw the path to achieve it. If you don’t believe it I am sure a try with them will make you change your preconceived notion. The 4th Idiot is the only one who does it Idiotically(as Aamir khan does) but really!
Posted by Rajeev Ranjan Dated- 26th December 2009 Read more...
Dheya In News: Guiding Light
>> Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Telegraph – Career Graph – Hemachaya De – 3rd Dec 09 
Pramit Mukherjee loved physics and wanted to become an astrophysicist. That was until he took an online career assessment test.
Of course, he still loves the subject, but this 15-year-old student of South Point High School in Calcutta now knows that he will do best as an entrepreneur.
Mukherjee was chivvied into taking the test by his parents who felt that his academic performance was not satisfactory.
They realised he needed to be clear about whether he had an aptitude for basic sciences.
Not surprisingly, the test brought about a sea change in the boy's manner of thinking. He learnt that he needed to assess his strengths and weaknesses before setting his career goals. "The programme helped me realise that I can think independently and that I should concentrate on becoming an entrepreneur," says Mukherjee. "I may not take science in Plus Two as planned earlier."
Abishek Datta, a Class XII student of another city school, is also a lot more confident after taking the test. "I am studying commerce. But I was never quite sure that I would do well in finance," he says. His online assessment test results, coupled with one-on-one career counselling, have shown that he would be much better off if he took up BBA (bachelor of business administration) after school and followed it up with an MBA.
Mukherjee and Datta are not alone. A whopping 98 per cent of boys and 96 per cent of girls in India are estimated to experience difficulty in making career decisions at the school and college levels.
Only 4 per cent of students receives some sort of expert guidance in this regard. Sometimes career choices are based simply on market demands without taking into consideration whether or not one's skills and personality suit the profession one is opting for. This is where career assessment programmes like Aavishkar hope to make a difference.
The first-of-its-kind online career assessment programme is helping hundreds of students choose the best suited career. The programme has been launched by Pune-based career guidance portal dheya.com in association with the Bengali daily Ananda Bazar Patrika.
Targeted at students aged between 13 and 26 years, Aavishkar has been designed by career experts and social scientists on the basis of psychometrics, mind exercises, simulations and questions to enable students realise their potential. "I have travelled across the world. In most developed countries, much emphasis is laid on career guidance for school students. In India, however, it's a neglected area. This is one of the reasons a large number of students do not opt for higher education," says Anand Desai, director of dheya.com. "In our country, only 12 out of 100 eligible heads enroll in colleges. According to the government, this needs to be raised to at least 60 to make the nation more productive.
"
Career experts also feel that such as- sessments should be made a mandatory part of the school curriculum. "Parents should be involved in these events because most often they are the ones who cause most often they are the ones who finance the children's education," says Salony Priya, a counselling psychologist who is part of the counselling teams in schools such as the Heritage School and DPS, Megacity.
Priya suggests that schools set up permanent notice boards on the premises disseminating career information for students. "I deal with hundreds of cases where students are depressed because they have taken up subject combinations for which they have no aptitude.
And also because parents exert pressure on them to follow conventional career paths such as medicine and engineering," she says.
However, academicians would like to put in a word of caution; they warn against bulldozing students into choosing a particular career path. "Perspectives change with age. And students should give themselves room to accommodate those changes. So although career assessment tests are welcome at an early stage, they should be done in a responsible manner. 
We shouldn't straitjacket students into a particular mode of thinking," says Devi Kar, principal of Modern High School who is also a member of a central panel on school reforms.
So if you need some advice on which path to follow after school or college, you know which way to go.
Read more...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
