Board exam results time. These are tough times for students, but even tougher for the parents in India. One important question in the minds of the concerned parents today is ‘what is the best career option for my child’? Indeed, I am also asked by many people about the ‘best’ choice. I am amused to hear this question. It is something like we going to a restaurant and asking for the best dish available there. Or, asking the salesman to show the best dress available in the showroom. How can anyone tell what is the ‘best’ for someone else?

I get reminded of our days. There were few preferred options available when we were in school, like engineering, medicine, defence forces and commerce. It is not as if then there were no teachers in schools or colleges or scientists, actors, singers, musicians, journalists, advocates etc. In fact the iconic scientists like Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai were born much before I did, we had finest teachers in schools and colleges, best music and films were made in that era, journalism existed then with people like Giriraj Jain and Arun Shourie reaching pinnacle of professional excellence etc. I’m giving these names is to emphasize that though these people didn’t join the glamorous and preferred careers of the time, they had successful, enriching and rewarding careers. But then it is easier for me to see all this today. In the heat of action, in the insecurities of livelihood, in the quest for highest monetarily rewarding career, students and parents have the foremost thought of choosing the ‘best’ career. Also, there were two steps at that time to relieve the anxiety and pain. One, when we finally decided the stream and two, when we got the right admission.

Times have changed now. The career options available today are innumerable. But so is the competition, both for students to progress in their chosen field and the parents to demonstrate to the society how my child is more intelligent than yours. It is reflected so well in the facebook posts of the parents who are happy to congratulate their children through social media. Issue is not so much about the announcement through the social media but the societal element in their psyche that builds enormous pressure on them which gets passed on to their children about the ‘highest’ and the ‘best’.

When we were preparing for first interviews of our lives we were asked to prepare well about our strengths and weaknesses. And advice was always to tell only those weaknesses that can be seen as strengths rather than weaknesses. In the process we always covered our real weaknesses for the interviewer. Now as an interviewer I often feel that the world hasn’t changed much in this respect. Either we get the same response that we used to give in those days or I find candidates saying plainly that they can’t think of any weaknesses that are related to this job. Similarly, when it comes to the strengths it is so easy to see that these have been cooked up for the sake of the interview. Assuming that we take every word of what is being told to us as gospel truth there is a great possibility of hiring a candidate for a position for which he is not intrinsically meant for. The issue here is whether the candidate is lying to us to get the job or he doesn’t know his strengths and weaknesses in reality too? I feel it is both. Most people don’t know their real competencies and weak spots but still keep chasing the path of money, position, designation, brand etc. It is much later in life they realize that what they chose for themselves is not something they are made for.

When we were in school we were in a state of flux about the ‘best’ career like the present days students. People joined different streams as per their and their parents’ likes and sometimes as per what was available. But then in many instances I saw that after few years of studies they changed the streams. An engineer felt that this subject was not his cup of tea and became a professional singer and rapper. Another one joined MBA because he also felt that working on shop floor or work sites was not for him. There were many such switches, like engineer to an IAS officer, mechanical engineer to a software engineer, engineer to a businessman, doctor who treats patients to an owner of a diagnostic centre or a nursing home etc. Further still, I kept witnessing people from sales and marketing moving to human resources and vice-versa, doctors becoming professional photographers, bankers becoming writers, singers becoming actors etc. Every time I asked these people about the reasons for this kind of switch I was given two reasons: One, that I was not aware that I wouldn’t like this subject and two, I never realized that I had this talent. So somewhere I felt that I was stuck at the wrong place. And the reason for this was that we never understood ourselves or we never tried to understand ourselves. So I feel is important to know our own strengths and weaknesses, our natural likes and dislikes and choose a stream of career that supports our natural strengths.

My first job was with a toy making company. The head of the division was a wonderful human being. Though I was just a Management Trainee, I was fortunate to interact with him a lot. He always joked that the company pays him for doing something that he loves to do, i.e. to play with toys. The statement has stayed with me since then – he gets paid to do something that he loved to do. It may appear that this is a dream come true. But in the journey of life I have met many people who simply love doing their work and jobs, despite the pressures associated with them. Just to give few examples, I know of a person who left a great multinational company job to become a corporate trainer starting all alone, a doctor who derives pleasure in treating his patients and charges a nominal fee, an advocate who uses his skills in genuinely helping the needy while charging well from the people who can afford. If we look around we will all find people who derive pleasure out of their professions, feel that they are using their skills and in the process also earn well enough that makes them happy. So this is also about what makes us happy to do. I’ve found many friends who are frustrated in well-paying jobs since their natural instincts are not suited for that job requirement. So imagine a gregarious guy who loves interacting with people being given an accounting job, a person who is reserved but brilliant in statistics being stuck in a sales job, an excellent sales person getting in to the shoes of an analyst etc.

All this is about reading and understanding ourselves well enough. But unfortunately, when we need it most we are too young to understand this. If we understand ourselves, we are often not confident. If we are confident, we don’t have financial support. If we have financial support, we don’t have parental support. And more often than not, parental support is in societal pressures. In my view, as mature adults, it is the bounden duty of parents to recognize the intrinsic talents of their wards, their likes and dislikes, their pleasure and pain areas and guide them towards a rewarding career that does justice to his abilities rather than making the child follow the herd mentality. Today I see that this thinking is making many parents think that the best career is in doing an MBA. It opens the doors to prosperity in life. A random survey of MBAs having 5-10 years of professional experience may however give them quite a different picture.

I have known people who have started thinking on these lines now. They are few in numbers though. I have high respect for parents who recognize that their ward will not make a good engineer however much they want but would be happy being an actor. I was happy to see parents who encouraged their son to go in to pure sciences despite their own reservations about it. I was happy to see my own parents who allowed me to sit at home after completing my studies since I wanted to prepare for civil services without earning anything and being a drain on their meagre resources so that I realized my dream. As parents there are three categories in this respect in my view. First, they allow the children full freedom to choose their future. I respect them for this. Second category is the parents who work with their wards first to understand them, then make them understand themselves, the world and the professions and careers to ensure that they make the right selection. I have high respect for them. Third category is of the parents who I hold in highest esteem. These are the ones who recognize the talents of their wards early, support them and nurture their talents in every respect so that they achieve their full potential and in the process have so much faith in them that they subsume their own lives and careers with them to grow together. I have a friend in this category who left his well-paying, secure and respectable job to be a part of the musical journey of his daughter. Issue is not the risk that he has taken. Bigger issue is that he identified the talent of his child, helped it blossom, aligned himself with the same and is now realizing the true potential for both of them. They are doing something that gives them happiness, for which they have natural talent and which will eventually give them adequate or more financial rewards than they desire. As parents our objective should not be to fulfill our dreams through our children, but to facilitate them in achieving their dreams.

My Little Thought Of Life on this issue is that just like there is no best dress, no best food, no best tourist destination etc. there’s no best career, no best subject, no best institute. Best of these things are different for different people. As individuals it is important for us to understand our natural talents, likes and dislikes, things that give us pleasure and joy in doing, before we choose our careers and professions. Our professional life should be contoured around our talents and happiness rather than so called preferred careers. And as parents I feel it is our duty to understand our children and assist them in making right choice rather than allowing societal pressures to force us to force our children. We can choose any of the three categories that I’ve written above.

To my friends and readers, I wish a joyous professional life based on natural talents than the so called preferred, jet setting careers.