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Digital System and Application for Career Guidance for students

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DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11158.68169

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Digital System and Application for Career Guidance for students

DD498 Design Project III

Course coordinator: Sheetal M. Gokhale

Submitted by

Aditya Biala

Supervised by

Sharmistha Banerjee

Department of Design

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

Guwahati – 781039, Assam

 1

IPR Declaration

I, Aditya Biala, declare that in accordance with the IPR norms generally followed in academics, I have
acknowledged appropriately all sources of materials/ content including visuals/ designs/ copy write
access from other authors/ sources/ references and used in this project as part of my academic
reporting.

I declare that the contents of this project report including visuals/ designs other than those whose
origin/source has been appropriately acknowledged are a result of my original efforts.

Signature of the Student

IIT Guwahati, Assam

Date: 15/04/21
 2

Acknowledgements
I would sincerely like to thank my project supervisor Asst. Prof. Sharmistha Banerjee for her constant
support, guidance and encouragement through the course of this project, and for providing the
necessary assistance at all times.

Further, I would also like to thank Asst. Prof. Sheetal M. Gokhale for her help and assistance in ensuring
the completion of this project.

And lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family members for their support and guidance.

This project would not have been possible without their help.
 3

Contents

S.No. Title Page No.

IPR Declaration 1

Acknowledgements 2

List of Figures 4

List of Tables 5

Abstract 6

1. Introduction 7

2. Methodology 10

3. Secondary Research 11

4. Primary Research 19

5. Analysis 22

6. Creating Personas 26

7. Design Brief and Objectives 30

8. Ideation 31

9. Solution Conceptualization 38

Conclusion (till now) 39

References 40

Appendix 40
 4

List of Figures

Figure Title Page No.

Employment stats in India 7

Career decision-making process 10

Stakeholder prioritization grid 18

Stakeholder map 19

Clustering of different insights 25

Stakeholder Map Reworked 26

Student Empathy Map 30

Parent Empathy Map 30

Requirement of Parents and students 31

Features and Stakeholder 32

Ideas 33-35

Business Model 1 36

Business Model 2 37

Links to all the figures are in the links under Annexure

 5

List of Tables

Title Page No.

Career counselling platforms online 16

Career Information Platforms Online 17

Student Questions 20

Parent Questions 21

Journey with the Student as Initiator 23

Journey with the Parent as Initiator 23

Journey with the School as Initiator 24

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Abstract
A career is a very important part of an individual’s life. But, with the increasing competition in today’s
world and due to the set stereotypes existing in society, students tend to make career decisions that can
be half-baked. These can further turn into frustrations while working for a job. Many times, career
decisions are affected by several factors, an important one being parents and teachers, where they too
may not have enough information to guide their children and students. The existing solutions in this
space are career guidance systems, which in India are mostly privatised as compared to foreign
countries. The focus of the research is to find gaps where a design intervention can be introduced to help
students be more aware of the career decisions they are making, and in the process, try to remove some
ambiguity. Primary and Secondary research was conducted to gather insights. The main stakeholders
were parents and students with high influence from the other stakeholders like the internet and
relatives. The insights highlighted a few core points around which the brief was designed. Personas were
created for the parents and the students for whom the solution would work. Further ideation then
involved coming up with features under each of the core factors from the brief, that would satisfy the
user requirements. The solution was finalized to be a mobile and web-based application with a chatbot
being the main point of contact.
 7

1. Introduction

Present scenario of background

In our country, students spend 70% of their adult life in the workplace. Career decisions are one of the most
important decisions in a student's academic and professional journey, but the fact is that most individuals in
the country do not feel fulfilled because of their careers.

There are several reasons for this lack of fulfilment or happiness. Majorly, as students, most tend to
make uninformed choices during their high school years, because of their interests and general graph of
academics. These decisions are also several times swayed by, or at the very least affected by people
around them. One of these major entities are parents, who follow a hands-on approach when it comes
to making career decisions for their children.

This leads to students making choices which in the long run not only take a toll on them mentally
since they do not feel it is worth their time, but also a lot of capital. In most cases, families do not
have enough money for the purpose of pursuing something else once the student is already on a
specific path.

And even if students do pursue a specific career path which they may or may not like, there is severe
competition due to such a huge population. In 2019, graduates, with a share of 16.3 per cent, made up
the highest unemployment rate in the country. This was followed by individuals with a postgraduate
degree or above with a share of 14.2 per cent. Therefore, the unemployment rate in the country
was higher among youth with higher educational qualifications.

Image - Employment stats in India

 8

One of the major causes as to why students fall into careers in which they do not have confidence is
because of the flaw in our education system. Our education system, until the summer of 2020, had had
no amendments in over 34 years. This changed when the government introduced the NEP in 2020, with
the core goal of improving the above-mentioned stats and letting students study and pursue the subjects
they would like to.

But, this still leaves several students, who do not understand their interests, with the dilemma of
navigating through courses which they may have little or no knowledge of. So, there was a need to
delve into existing guidance and counselling systems set in place which helps students.

This paper looks to delve into the changes that have taken place in the education system, the areas that
it has opened for research in, the existing guidance system

Research question
The main research question for this report was “When is the appropriate time at which intervention
should be introduced to help students introspect, and guide them in their career journey?”

Problem statement
That there is a need for an intervention in the current career guidance system in India, and the major
problem stems from the current education system which needs to be solved

Aim
To find the appropriate period when a system can be introduced for students to help them be more
informed and guide them in their career journey

Objectives
● Finding the factors which affect career decisions
● Problems in the current education curriculum and the career guidance system
● Finding what private sector companies are doing with regards to the same
● Mapping out the gaps
● Conceptualizing the intervention- system or product

Scope of the present research

Most data is available online, but still, begs the question as to why the guidance systems in place are not
as widespread or inviting. The current scope of the paper is to understand these shortcomings, ideate on
them, and come up with a few concepts to make a product or a system to help students.
 9

2. Methodology

Searching
To start the literature research, a few websites like Google Scholar, Core, and Google search engine were
used to perform searches on several articles, research papers, and even opinions of general people. The
searches were mostly based comprising of terms or phrases like ‘career’, ‘career counselling’, ‘education
system in India’, ‘Counselling in other countries, ‘Factors affecting career decisions’, ‘school career
guidance system’, ‘stats of employment’ and ‘career counselling in India’

Screening and Extracting

The articles in question had to be written sometime in the past two decades(2000-2020). Most articles
that were picked were sorted based on the topics and their abstracts. The relevancy of the articles
depended on the fact that they dealt with career/study guidance, factors, upsides, and downsides. It was
more favourable to find data related to India. The citations for each literature review paper was copied
with the data extracted from it and then rephrased and shortened for the purpose of this paper.

Conducting Interviews
For the interviews, a few friends and family members were approached, Aged between 17 and 23. The
interviews were structured in a funnel manner, with open questions, slowly delving into specific ones.

Questionnaire
The questionnaire was focused on students from ages 16-22. Aimed to substantiate prior findings and
get more personal findings of problems and obstacles and how people chose to overcome them.

Outlining User journey and drawing insights

The responses from the questionnaires were then clustered together to come up with major problem
spaces. A user journey was charted out to understand the main areas where intervention is required.
The user journey was charted to show how there can be several outcomes in each of the particular
cases.

Developing personas
Personas were created by thinking of a user who would actually require the specific solution in the
problem space.

Formulating design brief

The personas led to formulating a design brief that could encompass all the objectives that have to be
worked towards in the final solution.

Ideation
Features were brainstormed upon under each of the specific points of the brief. Each of the features
would target users' specific requirements. These features were then mixed together to come to a few
ideas out of which one would be worked upon with more depth to create a solution concept
 10

Designing the concept

After establishing the focus of the solution, the usage scenarios were ideated upon as a proof of concept.
This also highlighted the user flow through the application. Then, the Information Architecture,
wireframes and Hi Mockups were constructed.

3. Secondary Research
The results have been broken down in a chronology to be able to extract information better for the
purpose of research and find areas where interventions could be made possible. The secondary research
focuses heavily on counselling since that is one of the main ways in which students can be made more
aware and guided

3.1 The New Education Policy

The target metrics of the government through the NEP are to
1. 50% of students should complete higher education as compared to 25% earlier.
2. Reducing rote learning, everything is mostly about mugging up stuff since now the world is
moving more towards practical application.
3. No hard separation of streams.
It also sought to change the schooling levels from 10+2 to 5+3+3+4-
1. 5years-The first 5(pre, pre-primary, kindergarten, 1, 2) years focus on the language development
of the student
2. 3 years - The next 3(3-5) years is about maths and more stuff
3. In the next 3(6-8) years, you get to experience a lot of subjects.+ Vocational courses.
4. Last level, 4(9-12) years, Any academic and co-curricular.

3.2 Factors affecting Career and Study Decisions

There are a few variables/ factors which come into play while making a career stream decision:

● Social environment and stereotypes affect decision making. There are a few things that are
embedded in their minds from the very beginning. For example, one career being more superior
to other careers. This also includes how society has always highlighted only a few career choices
and not introducing students to the offbeat ones. This restricts the minds of the students which
can lead them to the wrong career choice.

● Educational The role of teachers in decision making. Due to regular interaction between a
student and a teacher, there is a lot of information exchange between them and students do pay
attention to what teachers say and this also leads to a lot of career options for the students. A
teacher’s personal opinion about a particular career can mislead a student; being an obstacle in
the selection. Even a student’s marks might be able to sway their decisions as well, for better or
for worse.
 11

● Personal The interests and abilities of the student affect decision making. The level at which a
student is able to recognize his/her interests and abilities and inculcate the same in the career
he/she wants to choose.

● Work culture The influence of peers in decision making. In the age of adolescence, peer pressure
or peer influence is a very common thing and it is reflected in many decisions in their life.

● Family plays the most significant and effective role in the development of the child. At the age of
adolescence, parental involvement is high in everything, especially in career decisions. Family
background and parent’s profession work as a silent feature in decision making. It plays a vital
role in accelerating and motivating children’s education. Family climate consists of the elements
of freedom, attention, submission, expectancy, warmth, trust, fairness, involvement, etc. which
makes the creative personality of an individual, in fact, these elements of the climate go long
way in making him self-reliant, open-minded, and above all, confident i.e. within having faith in
his own self.

3.3 Career Counselling

“We all know the importance of directions. Imagine someone asked you to get out of the house and
drive without giving any direction whatsoever. With this set of information, it is most likely you will not
be able to navigate yourself nor manage time and speed. Now imagine the same person telling you to
get out of the house and drive to a destination asking you to arrive at a pre-set time. With the first case
where no set directions or time is given, you are most likely to take a path that is as per your interests
and has lesser traffic (more scope) but without a destination in mind, it would be worthless to keep
travelling and eventually figure out that the path taken was not even conducive.”

Career Counseling aims to help an individual to start thinking about an end goal. It is defined as a
process that will help you to know and understand yourself and the world of work in order to make
career, educational, and life decisions.

The Process

Stage 1
Getting to know: In this stage, the counsellor and the individual get to know each other.
Gathering of data: This stage will involve both yourself and your caregivers or parents. Data needs to
be gathered so that a picture of who you are can be built up. This is done in various ways including
questionnaires and form filling.
Awareness Generation: an extremely important stage of career counselling. By this stage, the
individual will be comfortable with the chosen coach or mentor, and the counsellor will know a lot
about the individual. With this knowledge, he is then able to start working towards steps and
strategies that he will use throughout the remaining stages of your counselling.
 12

Stage 2: Exploration
It Will include some tests, and you will have your social behaviour assessed, as well as your
personality and your career interests. With this information, and your job experience discussed.
Stage 3: Decision Making
The counsellor and your parents will need to reach a common ground. Any barriers that are stopping
you from choosing a career will be ruled out. The most appropriate options will be selected for your
career, and a critical decision will be made.
Stage 4: Preparation
At this stage, all avenues will have been explored and decisions will have been made. Now is the
time to prepare a plan of action.

3.4 Counselling in India

There are about 1 lakh career counsellors for about 31.5 Crore students in India today. Compared to this,
countries like the US, having a career guidance system set from the early 1920s, have about 25lakh
counsellors for 5.6 Crore students. There are over 250 careers to choose from and there is a shortage of
nearly 14 lakh trained career counsellors in the country.
The biggest reason for a lack of career counsellors is the lack of understanding of its importance in
today’s environment. It has become common for students to seek help from their friends, seniors, and
elders rather than going to a professional. This lack of understanding is not only an issue in our country
but others as well.
Not only, India doesn’t have a Career Guidance in place set by the government, but rather it has been
turned into a privatized sector.

3.5 Why do students/people not participate in counselling

1. Parents, Relatives, and Peers tend to persuade and suggest careers, even though they might not
be fully aware of the avenues that are available.
2. Some students tend to feel that their interests alone can guide them through, not questioning
whether they have the aptitude or the attitude for a career in the same area.
3. Career counselling isn’t as publicized as it should be.
4. Some tend to take Psychometric tests in their schools but are not able to synthesize data from it.
5. The fees for the process with no guarantee whatsoever is a turn off for a lot of parents.
6. It is not seen as a necessary step in making a career decision.

3.6 Drawbacks of a Career Guidance System(if any)

1. Uncertainty: With the help of a career counsellor though best plans are laid out, it is not sure or
guaranteed for the desired outcome. An individual may pick a stream in accounting but after
graduation, he may find that the job isn’t satisfactory. This is because there is a drastic change in
the job market by the time the individual graduates out.

2. Multiple solutions: When seeking the help of a career advisor, they may frame and plan and
stick to it. The true fact is that there are a number of career choices that have multiple solutions.
 13

A simple example can be that there are employers who look only for computer specialists, there
may be employers who only look for ‘A’ grade graduates and there are employers too who offer
on the job training.
This is one way by which time and money can be saved. In this way, individuals are able to gain
fast experience. Hence individuals can find their way by dealing with the employers directly.

3. Qualified career advisor is mandatory: A career advisor must be a qualified advisor so that they
can guide the individuals toward the right path in their career. In case the rules and ethics are
altered, then it may result in disadvantageous to the individual. The career advisor must possess
sound knowledge about the career fields and also be properly trained without which he may not
assist the individuals. They must be the ones who are able to understand the psychology of
students and their capabilities. Only a truthful and unbiased career advisor can lead the students
to the right path. Hence it is important to look out for qualified, experienced, and perfect career
advisors.

4. Fake career advisors: There are many fake career advisors who try to guide students for their
education or employment sessions. They may not be experts in their field and may misguide
individuals. Students usually find the career options the career advisors mention and later find
that they ended at some level which they aren’t fit for.
Hence it is a requirement to look out for the right career advisor.

3.7 Students’ Career Awareness

A study conducted by Mindler showed that more than 90% of the students in Delhi were only aware of 7
careers in total. Meaning, that they would only have to develop their interests according to these 7
careers and may not even be aware of a career for which they might have an interest or an aptitude.

Most students get to know about their careers from:

1. Their parents
2. Relatives
3. From seminars held in school by professionals
4. Talks from industry people in schools
5. Coming in contact with people working in the job sector through contacts

3.8 Role of Mentoring

Mentorship is a mutually beneficial professional relationship in which an experienced individual (the
mentor) imparts knowledge, expertise and wisdom to a less experienced person (the mentee), while
simultaneously honing their mentoring skills. An effective mentor can professionally guide the mentee
while maintaining a friendly and supportive relationship.
 14

How to approach mentoring

● Define what you want out of your career and what you need to learn to get there.
● Approach a mentor relationship as if it's a business friendship – be casual and friendly, and try
not to ask weird questions like, "Will you be my mentor?"
● Start with your own professional network. We often already have mentors who provide advice in
various ways, and all it takes is a little effort from us to grow that connection into an ongoing
relationship.

3.9 Finding Competitors

Career Counselling Platforms
The goal of carrying out this research was to understand the existing offerings in the market in the space
of career counselling, how my conceptualization can stand out from these.

Name Features Observation

Mindler ● Provides Career Counselling ● Has a long array of features

● Encompasses everyone from
middle school to post-grad.
● Has tests on the parameters of
Style, Interest, Aptitude,
Personality and Emotional
Intelligence
● Free Two 15-minute
counselling sessions
● Has a library of various careers
● Regular updates on Entrance
exams
● Career Awareness Newsletter
● Guidance for students who
would like to apply to foreign
universities
that sits atop most of the
competitors
● Most of the mentioned
features are good on paper,
but a lot of them are
covered under their long
term programs which are
paid
● Glassdoor reviews of the
particular counselling show
that several employees
working here and even
people approaching them
did not feel benefited

Career Guide. com ● Provides Career Counselling ● Most of the mentioned

● Encompasses everyone from features are paid
middle school to post-grad. ● Has more promising
● Has tests on the parameters of testimonials from people
Interest, Aptitude, Personality
and Motivators
● Free One 10-minute session
● Has a library of various careers
● Regular updates on Entrance
exams
● Guidance for students who
would like to apply to foreign
universities
 15

● Have Career videos and

Articles at the forefront of the
website

MapMyTalent ● Provides career Counseling ● Has the least inspiring User

● Has tests on the parameters of Interface from the
Interest, Aptitude, Personality competition

Table - Career Counseling Platforms Online

All of them have mostly the same offerings, with Mindler showcasing that it is superior to the rest by
offering more perks compared to the rest. Their offerings are split into different payment plans, each one
offering something more than the previous one. But, these have high prices.

The basic offerings from all these sites are split into 2 - Online and Offline modes

1. Online - The online mode refers to psychometric tests, aptitude tests, personality tests, etc.
These tests are calculated together to give the student a result about their capabilities

2. Offline - The offline made refers to the one on one interaction that a counsellor will have with
the student and the parents, where they analyze the sheet and recommend paths to them, as
well as their opportunities.

They market themselves by going to schools and asking students to try an aptitude test for free. Mindler
even provides a free counselling session, but online reviews suggest that they are not fruitful in any way.

Career Information Platforms

Name Features Observation

Youngbuzz ● Has tabs like ● A clean User Interface and

- Top Courses Experience
- Top universities ● Has a lot of information,
- Top Tutors which seems helpful, but to
● Career guidance questions the uninitiated, might not
focus upon the persons class be easy to navigate around
and age and whether they
would like clarity or
information
● Information on Entrance Exams
● Information on Courses
● Has facilities to talk and look
for counsellors
● Has university course criteria
 16

listed in one place

Best India Edu ● Information on different career
courses
● State-wise information on
colleges and how the state is
excelling in education
● Entrance Exams and date
information
● Distance learning and how to
approach
● Career option tabs
● The website gives basic
information but does not
give an in-depth overview
of different courses
● It also doesn't have a
specific form of guidance.
● More information focused
that UI

Admission News ● State-wise college listings ● Very informative, but the

● Exam alerts
● Admission Alerts
● Tabs for most searched
colleges and exams for the day
● Can ask direct questions for
the query to professionals
● Gives an overview of exams
like SAT, GRE, GMAT and some
examples.
data is not easily digestible
● They ask questions to
professionals seems to be
tacky
● The information Hierarchy
and Architecture has a
mismatch in several areas
of the site (lacks
consistency)

Table - Career Information Platforms Online

Key Takeaways from Competitive Analysis

● All the educations sites have information, but except one of them, all of them are not easily
readable.
● Counselling sites are a hit or a miss, and bad reviews or testimonials work against the entire
industry as a whole.
● Also, offerings by each of the sites are the same, the only difference is the weightage they give to
a certain feature more than the other.

3.10 Stakeholder Mapping

From the literature review and system map, stakeholders of the system were identified and listed. Using
the matrix method, the priority stakeholders were identified based on each stakeholder’s influence on
the decision-making process of the student. The importance of each stakeholder was based on the
literature review that was done.

Goals
● What is the influence of stakeholders?
● Who are the primary stakeholders that are to be targeted for the new system?
 17

Stakeholder Matrix

Figure - Stakeholder Prioritization grid

Stakeholder Map

Figure - Stakeholder Map for Personal Career/Stream Decision-making process

Key takeaways
● Students and Parents are the most influential
● Government has a low influence on the personal decision-making process
 18

4. Primary Research

4.1 The goals

The goals of the research were to:
- Find the appropriate age and class in which a solution is required
- Who should the solution focus mainly
- Identifying the ways in which the current decision journey takes place
- How parents influenced the end decision
- Suggestions from the students and parents on what they thought were important aspects to
consider

4.2 Interviews and Questionnaire

Interviews
Since the interviews had to take place in the time of Covid, only 8 students were approached for a face
to face discussion and 2 parents. The interviews were semi-structured and carried out in an informal
manner, to get biases out of the way. The interviews were recorded in an audio format with the
participants being made aware beforehand.

Questionnaire
A questionnaire was sent out to 34 students
The following questions were asked to draw insights from the students

1. What degree are you pursuing/planning to pursue (B.Tech, B.A. etc..)?

2. Why did you take the particular study stream of choice?

3. What factors do you think were positive and which were negative in coming to a conclusive
decision?

4. What all things if changed, could have helped you make a more informed decision?

5. What did you think were the downsides to be in a particular stream, if any?

6. Any comments regarding study streams in general?

7. Which field are you going for?

8. How are you making/ did you make the decision of pursuing this specific field?

9. How did you learn about the various career options available to you?

10. What factors played a role in deciding the particular field and career?

11. Do you feel there could have been a way in which understanding your choices and finding
them would have been simpler? Can you state them?
 19

12. Any other comments or information that I can research upon?

13. Did you feel uncertain while taking a decision about your streams and careers?

14. If yes, can you state a few reasons as to why you felt this way?

15. What role have your parents, relatives, or teachers played in your coming to decision
regarding your streams and careers?

16. Can you suggest ways in which schools can help you be more informed about your streams
and career choices?

17. Can you suggest ways in which parents can help you be more informed about your streams
and career choices?

Table - Student Questions

The following questions asked to the parents. Since the interview was semi-structured, the questions
were removed or follow-ups were added.

1. How did you help your child make this decision?

2. What were the important factors you considered to help your child make a career decision?

3. How did you land on this particular career choice for him/her?

4. What were the difficulties you faced when making this decision?

5. How did you inform yourself of the different careers that were available?

6. When do you believe the right time to make a decision like this?

7. Did you consider career counselling as a way to help your child make the decision?

8. Were there any other professionals you approached for help?

9. Why or why not?

Table - Parent Questions

 20

4.3 Insights
The following were the observations that were made. The students and parents that were interviewed,
the majority belonging to the CBSE curriculum, mostly in Tier-1, Tier-2 cities

Students in School

1. Not being sure of the choices they were making when they were going from class 10th to 11th.
2. Most students either did not know their interests or their marks weren’t good enough in their
areas of interests.
3. They mostly made the decision of going into a certain stream by eliminating the ones they did
not seem to fit, even when they weren’t aware of the content that was going to be taught. This
means that most students take a particular stream because it seems more favourable to them,
rather than actually having an interest in it.
4. Many students started thinking about the career they wanted to go for after they had taken their
stream.
5. Many made their stream decisions in the last 1-2 months of class 10th, rather than figuring it
out over the course of the year.
6. Some of them went into a specific stream because they had a genuine interest in the subject but
later realized that they did not like the intricacies.
7. 2 of the students went for a particular stream because their parents were already pursuing it
and hence they had a better understanding of the career choice.
8. Majorly, students selected careers where they could get more salary. In a few cases, this did not
equate to it being their primary interest.
9. One of them considered career counselling but didn’t particularly go for it since one of their
friends tried it and did not feel that it was fruitful enough
10. The biggest stressor for all the students at the end was the ambiguity about the fact that
where their careers and their studies were taking them.
11. None of the students tried career counselling, with only 2-3 giving a thought to it, but never
going through with it, just because they felt that it wasn’t very important.
12. Another thing to note is that ICSE students had to make the same decisions but in their 9th
grade as well. So, they get an extra two years in one specific stream and then have the option to
change to another one.
13. One mentioned the fact that they felt a huge disconnect between high school and college
because they didn’t have the appropriate skills for the particular classes from the get-go.

Parents

1. Keep searching for more careers to recommend to their children by talking to people already
working in a particular field or trying to check online.
2. Most parents like to leave this decision up to their child but still tend to look into areas like job
security, pay, market and social value.
3. Parents at times make the decision for the student if he/she is not able to make one.
 21

4. A big headache for the parent is the amount of money they can invest for the child’s education in
that particular field.
5. Many times, they aren’t well informed about the financial aid they can be offered from the
government or the banks.
6. The parents did not consider counselling, because it didn’t come to their mind when making the
decision.
7. One parent did feel like approaching a career counsellor, but felt that the money they were
asking for was exorbitant.

5. Analysis
The insights from the Secondary and Primary research allowed for a better understanding of the
behaviour of the two main stakeholders and how they interact with the other stakeholders in the system.
It also helped confirm some of the pain points that were derived from the secondary research as well as
highlighted a few new ones.

5.1 The Journey Mapping

A journey map was created where it was identified that there can different initiators of the process of
decision making

Initiated by the student

In this journey, the student comes to the realization by themselves that they should start thinking about
their future

1. The student decides to make a stream choice and furthermore, career choice

2. Starts looking at the subjects they like

3. Talks to parents and teachers to understand the different options they have

4. Starts eliminating the jobs they won't like

5A End up taking one of the 3 streams and figure that they'll make a career decision in the
future

5B Take science as a stream since it has the most potential to branch out and most people
are taking it

5C Know the particular Stream they would like to pursue and the particular
job they would like to have in the future

5D Depending on the marks they got in class 10th, they take the stream which is centred
around that subject

Table - Journey with the Student as Initiator

 22

Initiated by the Parent

In this case, the parent is the one asking the student to start thinking about their future. It tries to
outline how a parent would play a bigger role in the decision-making process

1. The parent asks the student to think about what they want to do with their life

2. Student and Parent start looking at different career streams

3. Parent talks to their friends, colleagues and family members to understand about more
career fields

4A Makes a career decision with their child after much information gathering

4B Make a career decision for the child because they believe that the particular stream is the
future

4C Let’s the child make the career decision for themselves

Table - Journey with the Parent as Initiator

Initiated by School
In this journey, the school plays a role as being a trigger for the students to look into the sort of streams
they would like to pursue

1. The school asks the students in grade 10th to make a decision for their future streams

2. Students who haven’t given it a thought have to make a decision within 1-2 months

3. Teachers suggest particular students with particular streams because of their grades and
their aptitude

4. Some schools offer students with an aptitude test.

5A Student already knows what they want to pursue and makes their decision

5B The student approaches the school counsellor for guidance

5C The student makes a haywire decision because of a lack of time

6A A student after making the stream decision realises they do not like it and have the
option to change to another one in the first few months.

6B Students are fine with their decision and keep studying in their particular streams

Table - Journey with the School as Initiator

 23

5.2 Clustering the research insights

Figure - Clusters of different insights (link in annexure)

Takeaways from the cluster

● It was highlighted several times throughout the questionnaire and the interviews that students
felt that they weren’t well-knowledged and informed about the different career options
available to them.
● Some felt that such an important life decision was too soon to be taken since most students felt
that they heavily relied on their class performance and their close ones telling them

Main Points
1. Students and Parents are not well informed
2. The information available to them through the net can be cumbersome to navigate through
3. The decision can be sometimes made in a hurry
4. Students may not be aware of their aptitude in a particular stream
5. Several times, they are not aware of their interests
6. Parents and veen students do not seek professional help where required
7. The offerings from Counseling services can be exorbitant and may not be up to the mark
8. Students feel the needs for appropriate guidance
9. They think that counselling should be made a part of the curriculum
10. A suggestion of trial and error of streams was also given
 24

11. Internet is more influential in gathering knowledge

12. A few felt that they were pressured due to expectations
13. Students look to their seniors for mentoring but do not find professionals to help them.
Mentoring in India is close to a Tutor, but a mentor could be more practical

Change in the Stakeholder Analysis

Figure - Stakeholder Map Reworked

● The Internet is more influential after the primary research conducted.

● It was highlighted to me that siblings and cousins can be turned into another stakeholder rather
than clubbing them under Relatives
 25

6. Creating Personas
After Analysis, it seemed to be fruitful to create personas, since they would be the target users for whom
I will be solving the problem. These personas were based on two main stakeholders - students and
parents

Students

Name: Ankit Dhaiya “I am on my path to becoming

Age: 15 an engineer like my parents
Grade Level: 10 since I have a keen interest in
City: New Delhi science”

Overview

Ankit is a 10th standard student. He has always been passionate about studies and extracurriculars.
Due to his parent’s professions, working as software engineers, he has realised that he would like to
pursue the same career like them. His parents realise this and though supportive, would like him to
also look up some other career avenues, since they have seen a lot of their friends along the way, find
their particular careers frustrating or just boring. Ankit ponders upon this notion and feels that there is
no harm in finding more careers.

Goals Motivations Pain points

Finding more careers that match Curious about other fields that t’s cumbersome to navigate the
his interests and values exist after taking Science in 11th web with so much information

Finding people from a particular Doesn’t want his career choice Finds contradicting information
career field to be a burden in the future on various sites

Finding colleges that will give Difficult to stray from the

him that particular course pre-existing mindsight of
engineering
 26

Name: Astha Pathak “I have a few hobbies, but no

Age: 14 real interests as such and I don’t
Grade Level: 9 know where to start”
City: Pune

Overview

Asthma is a 9th-grade student. She has never been particularly adamant about her studies, but she
has always gotten sufficient marks, to not worry about what she will be doing in her future. But,
recently, she had to start giving thought to her career, since her older cousin just got into an
engineering college and due to this, her parents are trying to find her interests. She realises that she
doesn't really have a real interest in a particular field and has never given a thought to the entire
ordeal in seriousness. She starts contemplating her options but came to the realisation that the
careers she knows about aren't exciting her a lot. Her hobbies are also not something she would like to
pursue in her life. She feels stuck and doesn't have a north star to help her clear her doubts.

Goals Motivations Pain points

To figure out who she is and Would like to know more about Doesn't know a lot about
what her interests are herself herself- goals and interests

To understand the other careers Doesn’t want to feel dejected by Doesn’t know where to start
she can look into taking something she’ll later
regret
 27

Parent

Name: Rakesh Agarwal “I realise the pain it takes to

Age: 47 earn money, so I want my
Occupation: Bank Accountant daughter to not feel the same
City: Gurgaon, Haryana when she grows up”

Overview

Rakesh has a daughter studying in the 9th standard. He is the only bread earner of a middle-class
family. He recently came to the realization that his daughter has yet not made a decision of which
stream she would like to pursue in 10+2. He has always been of the mindset that engineering is the
future since all the students in his area started pursuing JEE coaching. He too is of the same mentality,
but his daughter has made a point that she wouldn’t like to go for something like JEE and rather look
for something more offbeat and creative. He supports his daughter's decision but realises that she
doesn’t know what she wants to creatively pursue. Also, he needs to make sure that he can support
her financially in whatever manner possible

Goals Motivations Pain points

To find other careers than just His daughter’s happiness Doesn't understand how to go
engineering about different careers

Understanding the finances and Does Not have knowledge of

the help he can get “Off-beat” careers
 28

Empathy map

Figure - Student Empathy Map

Figure - Parent Empathy Map

 29

7. Design Brief and Objectives

Keeping all the insights in mind, the following is the design brief that was formulated

Create a solution for students and parents which can be easily accessed and used by them
from middle school onwards, which provides them with one or several of the following factors
● Awareness
● Introspection
● Guidance
● Prompts and Triggers

8. Ideation

8.1 Requirements
The following were the requirements that were translated from the user needs

Figure - Requirements of Parents and Students

 30

8.2 Brainstorming on Features

The 5 points that were highlighted as the core factors were then ideated upon to come up with features
that can then be combined to formulate a particular idea. The different mediums in which the solution
can exist and the stakeholders that will be playing a part were also listed, so as to get a better
understanding of all key elements.

The following were the features:

Figure - Features and Stakeholders listed (link for the full image in Annexure)

8.3 Feature Clustering to Form Ideas

The various features were then clustered together to form ideas for a particular system. So, each idea
would have a combination of the features combined with the stakeholders and the medium in which the
idea would exist in.
● Each cluster has a dominant colour
● The bigger circles try to highlight the more important feature
● Each cluster has colours corresponding to the Core Factor that it belongs to.
● Each cluster represents an Idea, which will then further be worked upon after review from my
peers to find the ones that have the most potential to be turned into a solution
 31

Figure - Idea 1

Figure - Idea 2
 32

Figure - Idea 3

Figure - Idea 4
 33

Figure - Idea 5

Figure - Idea 6
 34

8.4 Finding the best ideas

The ideas were then discussed upon with my project guide and my peers. I also went back to my primary
research to highlight the most valuable features. The following 2 were the key points:
1. It was more beneficial to work on ideas that had more focus on Awareness and Guidance since
most students and parents had highlighted that as a goal
2. Ideas with all the Core Factors in some proportion seemed to be a better fit for a solution
3. Better to have an idea that is more easily available to people

8.5 Rough Business Models

Two business model Canvas were created for the probable solutions to account for feasibility. it helped in
highlighting:
1. The problems they will be solving
2. The value they will give to the end-user
3. Capabilities
4. Their Limitations

Figure - Idea 1 Business Model

 35

Figure - Idea 2 Business Model

 36

9. Solution Conceptualization
After going through the research again, understanding the user, the requirement, the conceptualization
for a mobile and web-based application was formulated, where the user would be interacting with a
chatbot to find answers more easily. The reasons why the specific idea was chosen are as follows-
1. The website would work similar to websites like youngbuzz, but work upon removing their cons
by providing information by guiding the user to their specific need using a bot
2. A bot makes the Q and A between the machine and the user more personal and reliable
3. Other than the bot, the solution also introduces the concept of reminders and notifications to
make the user procrastinate less while making their career decisions.

9.1 NLP vs Rule-Based Bots

 37

9.2 Listing out the Features that were Outlined for the Website and Bot

Card Sorting
38
 39

User Flow

Name of the Application

Icon
 40

Bot character design

High fidelity mockups

1. Splash Screen
 41

2. Login

3. Posing questions
 42

4. Landing Screens

5. Different screens
43
44
 45

Conclusion
The project was split into two halves. The first half focused on highlighting whether there were problems
in the career decision-making system, the problems that exist in it, the solutions that have been
introduced and their fallacies and how different stakeholders affect each other. The second part focuses
on highlighting the main areas which are required to formulate a solution, the features that can go under
each of these areas and how to further ideation has taken place to reach a specific solution.
 46

References

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/career#:~:text=noun,soldier%20ended%20with%20the%2
0armistice.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1001039/india-unemployment-rate-by-education-level/#:~:text=Gra
duates%2C%20with%20a%20share%20of,youth%20with%20higher%20educational%20qualifications.

https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NEP_Final_English_0.pdf

Dani. P , Desai. H(2018). Factors Affecting the Career Decision Making of Secondary School Students.
The International Journal of Indian Psychology(Vol 6, Issue 3)

Why Career Counselling is important: http://www.web4jobs.info/cms/Post.View.php?id=50

https://www.chriskenber.com/process-of-career-counselling/

Bhargawa P. (2020) https://www.thehindu.com/education/beacon-of-light/article31659472.ece

Mindler (June 2017) https://www.mindler.com/top-career-guidance-platforms-in-india

View publication stats

47

Appendix

Link to the questionnaire output

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M1PYGOVH-kgbe_sQrR4x65EqPSWy0k-x9gs5VD-qDQ8/edit?u
sp=sharing

All Images https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Htlhc_tP1l0e9cVQ3DdqD4cNlJbINpmY?usp=sharing

Decision Making Process https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q12ICcyFUc9wDoK0rdeUBo

ybTJsflQtI/view?usp=sharing

Stakeholder Matrix https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Obmhh0B6dndyx1JVMDaU

OKHMIk3nWNth/view?usp=sharing

Insight Clusters https://drive.google.com/file/d/18MoIB8Hbh66zjbluF-3556_I

7GwBxMbJ/view?usp=sharing

Empathy Maps https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l5MB0lVDXaCDx4uz

L5qLz8QYdokdDRXC?usp=sharing

Features and Stakeholders https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o80EcGWg-WQWt0PPw2lY

SWRr7YCxLL10/view?usp=sharing

Ideas https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I7T12iue_j93FL7S91
evmDJv9Z-s-GN0?usp=sharing

Business Model Canvas https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15fNEU1XOEBuAn5Bi

d489XUQ-8otE8Ajr?usp=sharing