Think like an Entrepreneur, Hone Skills, Look for gaps, and address them to make a career: Experts

NEW DELHI: The time is ripe for the youths of India to think out of the box, add value to self in terms of newly acquired skills and become employable, an entrepreneur to offer employment to others.

That was the message given to the college/university students and young job-seekers by experts drawn from the professional world during the webinar “Participative College Placement Drive” organized recently by Jeevitam, a tech-enabled livelihood platform in association with Asian Community News (ACN) Network.

The speakers during the webinar included R Aswani Kumar, Joint Director of Employment, NICS; Amit Gupta, Co-founder Callidus Social Enterprises, and Shreesh Sarvagya,  Management Author & CEO, International Commission for Development.

Amit Gupta, Co-founder Callidus Social Enterprises called upon the students and young job seekers to become grass-root innovators and think like entrepreneurs and identify the problems or the gap areas, and finally address them by thinking out of the box.

“You need not be at the receiving end and wait for the opportunity to come to you but be proactive and play on the front foot to become a problem identifier as well as problem-solver. The government agencies like NICS were plenty in number in India which were there for handholding the budding entrepreneurs and offer mentorship for their projects. Take an example of Mansukhbhai Prajapati’s entrepreneurial skills who launched Mitti Cool products made of clay just by innovating thinking and became a success story,” said Gupta.

The webinar which was streamed live on various social media platforms and digital means including Zoom, Facebook, and audio conference allowing access to about a thousand students across India, aimed at addressing questions like how to find suitable livelihood opportunities, how to create a network and grow a circle of Influence, how to get a chance to interact with people from various sectors, and how to find opportunities to become social entrepreneurs, and finally to make sure that “Har Student Banega Atmanirbhar.”

Shreesh Sarvagya,  Management Author & CEO, International Commission for Development, advised the youths to add new skillsets and go for value addition by learning new skill sets, which would make them employable.

“Getting a job is one thing but then adding value and learning new skills is another step to take. Just follow the unlearning, learning, and relearning formula, and instead of setting a goal try to find out what you enjoy working, and then look for ways and means to become qualified to what you want to do. More than 70 percent of engineers in India are not employable as they were not taught the required skills,” said Sarvagya in his address.

Sarvagya who has authored a book titled OBSTACKLE, 12 pitfalls the entrepreneurs do not learn to tackle at management schools during the CCOVID-induced lockdown period, said India should move away from the concept of manufacturing as the country has the potential to move from an agrarian economy to services economy, the way the US did in the past.

The event was co-hosted by Munish Chawla, Co-Founder of Jeevitam, and KG Mohan, an Independent Consultant.

R Aswani Kumar, Joint Director of Employment, NICS made the audience aware of the ample benefits and guidance they could draw by using the web portal being run by NICS.

“We have started online employability training programs, also called career skill training with TCS iON during the COVID period. Therefore more and more youths are being sourced from tier-2 cities. Any person having NICS ID can log in to our portal and access these programs for soft skills etc. We are in discussion with Microsoft too who have agreed to offer free training through their Microsoft Virtual Academy,” said Joint Director, NICS.

NICS has organized a series of job fairs like the ones we have done with Jeevitam weekly where employers like Hindustan Liver, Zomato, Big Basket participated. It was on March 25, the very first day of lockdown, NICS had launched an online job fair.