Free career guidance services for students and professionals in COVID-19 times

To help students and professionals amid the current uncertainty, the Institute for Career Studies (ICS) has been providing a wide range of free career guidance services through its mobile app, ICS Career GPS.
Among the many changes triggered by the Pandemic, an important one is how we make our educational and career-related choices. These tough times have highlighted the significance of diversifying our career portfolio with suitable fallback options. It is predicted that 85% jobs that will be on offer in 2030 do not exist today. Many traditional specialisations will be replaced by new-age ones such as Molecular Gastronomy, Behavioural Finance, Cliodynamics, Cognitive Psychology, Genetics Law, etc, which require interdisciplinary education.
Mumbai, which has always been at the helm of career trends in India, is expected to, once again, reflect these changes before other cities. In this rapidly changing employment scenario, Mumbai has the advantage of its big pool of educated, upwardly mobile and well-travelled young workforce. In fact, all of Maharashtra, which has more than 40 million children under the age of 18 years, has a distinct advantage in staying ahead of times.
“We have guided numerous students and professionals globally over the past few months. We especially want to reach out to the youth in tier-II cities of Maharashtra like Nashik, Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur,” said Dr Amrita Dass, Founder-Director, ICS, and Member, UP Government’s Steering Committee for implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
Highlighting the need and scope of career counselling in India, Dr Dass said, “Our country has 50 million students in need of career guidance. A recent career awareness survey revealed that 93% Indian students are aware of just 7 career options although there are over 250. ICS Career GPS guides users to careers based on their interests. The deep-dive tests in the app enable them to shortlist their best fit careers. The user gets a career report and information about courses, campuses and career pathways, along with chat opportunity with our advisors – free of charge. The objective is to help the youth discover their dream careers.”
In August, the School Education Department of J&K had placed ICS Career GPS on its career portal to benefit students from the region. The app highlights the new subject combinations and careers that will emerge with the implementation of NEP 2020, and also facilitates easy access to experts for personalised counselling.
Additionally, ICS has provided over 1,000 free personalised counsellings since August 15, as part of a CSR initiative.

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Established in 1985, ICS, with a global presence today, pioneered career counselling and guidance services in India, Bangladesh and the Middle East, benefitting over 3,00,000 students.