The document discusses two ideas for helping students choose careers: 1) Having career guides/counselors give students perspectives on work-life balance and making informed career choices based on goals and aspirations. This helped one student, Mary, achieve clarity and a better job match. 2) Allowing students to try simulated jobs during school to experience different work environments and help decide on satisfying careers. This gave Mary relevant work experience and helped her employer find a qualified candidate. Prototyping and testing these ideas led to continuous ideation and cross-fertilization of ideas with stakeholder input. The fast feedback loop was an effective way to address the complex problem of career guidance.

1. Prototyping & Testing
Jaspreet Singh
Team: MAVERICKS

2. A young, recently married girl, with dual degrees needs to achieve clarity and
refocus her efforts in a manner to achieve her career goals!
PROBLEM STATEMENT
IDEA: Career Guides
This idea explores the possibility of having knowledgeable /experienced people as career
guides for students at schools. In the context of the stakeholder I have interviewed there
was a lack of perspective on how relevant education after high school can be a stepping
stone towards a meaningful career and whether the choice of career really helped
address life goals or bolster self-image. The career guides/counselors would be tasked
with giving students perspectives on work-life balance and right career choices based
upon student input/aspirations and other real world concerns. In India education is
mostly about grades and where one ends up working is seldom related to life goals,
educational background etc.

3. PROTOTYPE Mary is confused about what to study and what relevance it will
have on her career. She meets a career guide who gives her a
better perspective on her goals and how to achieve them, leading
to a better choice of job for Mary.

4. What Worked
Having someone to talk to
Having someone up-to-date and informed
Developing new perspectives
Achieving clarity
Thinking differently
Focused approach
Better Job Matching
Mentoring
What Could Be Improved
Access to Counselors/ Guides
Sensitization among students towards Counselors
Networked Counselors
Linked to Employers
Questions Ideas
Can career guidance be a community service?
Can counselors themselves place students?
Is a panel of counselors better than a single one?
Will the assessments be limit the future potential?
Should students take advice only as guidelines?
Networked counselors can place them better
Every locality can have career guidance hubs
Career counseling can evolve into a career too
Students will feel empowered

5. A young, recently married girl, with dual degrees needs to achieve clarity and
refocus her efforts in a manner to achieve her career goals!
PROBLEM STATEMENT
IDEA: Students try out a few weeks in Simulated Jobs
I believe this idea if realized can help students get a feel of the job environment in most of
its complexity and decide for themselves if it matches close to their vision of a
satisfying/productive work life.

6. PROTOTYPE Mary is put through a simulated job experience during her school
tenure and this serves as a compass for her future work plans and
helps her employer by providing him a candidate with relevant
work experience and aptitude.

7. What Worked
Experiencing close to real environment
Getting experience
Developing/ Sharpening Skills
Office Ethics
Real Work
Self Motivation
People Skills
Working under pressure etc.
What Could Be Improved
Realism of the simulations
Placing the students in a real work place
Exposure to work of choice/ aspiration
Insights to good work
Insights to work-life balance
Questions Ideas
Who would provide such opportunities?
Will the work offered be real, be meaningful?
Will this work?
Will this offer a peek into a possible career path?
Will the experience be wholesome or topical?
Organizations can offer this as part of CSR activity
Employers can select future employees easily
Everyone can apply with some relevant experience
Work-Life balance can be better achieved

8. REFLECTIONS
The prototyping and testing method turned out to be even more useful than
mere interviewing as it lead to a continuous flow of ideas and cross-fertilization
of ideas with the stakeholder’s involvement (directly or indirectly).
Also there seemed to be more interest from the stakeholder’s side as she could
see the exercising really trying to solve her problems. She began to take personal
interest in the matter, owning it.
The faster pace of the ideation/ testing/ feedback loop was appreciated.
I would like to try out more ideas with this method and hope to address this
complex problem with plausible solutions.