Many young people in Thailand, even at university-level, have limited ideas about career choice. Important decisions about the future directions of their lifetime employment are often left to chance or the guidance of others, particularly of senior family members.
A valuable service, operated by talented young people who have successfully solved career choice problems, is now available to guide undergraduates who feel the need for career guidance.
We invited Ms Pin Kasemsiri, co-founder and CEO of CareerVisa to explain how this valuable service operates.
What does CareerVisa aim to achieve?
Our vision is to help students succeed in their own way. We believe that each individual can design their own path to a fulfilling career. In 2014, we launched a career education study through collaboration with students from Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration. We found that approximately 50% of undergraduates do not have a set career goal. Since then, we have pursued our vision and engaged with more than 1,000 graduates each year.
How did you get the idea to start CareerVisa?
In 2009, when we were still undergraduates, we had the opportunity to go on an exchange program where we discovered the concept of a "Career Center". We witnessed how an active career centre could strengthen the meaning of education. It cultivates a community of students eager to acquire practical knowledge and actively seek challenges to test what they learn. We started to collect data about how career centres worldwide function, including in USA, Europe and Singapore.
Who do you aim to service?
Currently, our service is concentrated among Thai youth, especially undergraduates. We are seeking a strategic partner to expand our impact beyond Bangkok to where career guidance is much needed. However, the world of employment is changing with the current "4th industrial revolution" having its effect. Youth employment is a global issue. Each country is facing its own challenges, such as youth unemployment and skill mismatch. We recognise that there are opportunities to fix these issues across the globe.
Many career decisions need to be made before choosing tertiary education subjects. Why don't you work more at the secondary education level?
Before we set up CareerVisa, we undertook research to understand the players in this "career education" ecosystem. High school students who are concerned about their future careers are few in number. Most are concerned only about achieving high scores to enter prestigious universities. Therefore the scale and the depth of impact we can deliver might be limited. As there are other social enterprises tackling "career education" for high school students, we decided to concentrate on college students.
How do you undertake career advice?
We see our role as supporters to help students develop a career designer mind-set. To develop a fulfilling career, you need to have a good understanding of self (self-awareness) and also a mind-set open to "take action" and learn from that. We engage students with questions in five aspects: skills, people, working conditions, lifestyle, and values. Through past experience, students make the best "guess" about their preferences. From these data points, they form assumptions about their dream job. It is only when they commit to take action to validate these assumptions that our process can be completed.
Might it be better to concentrate more on the natural aptitudes of individuals, including assessment techniques, rather than what they think they want to do?
We encourage people to take assessment tests. But we also tell them the challenges of test validity and what one can derive from such assessment tests. Most of the time, assessments allow you to find your strengths or "what you're good at". Yet, to be successful in the long run, you also need to be persevering and develop your talents. Angela Duckworth, a psychologist from Stanford University, described this in her book entitled "Grit". Doing what you are good at and what you love is a great combination in terms of generating successful outcomes.
Do students know what they want to do in life, or are they undecided?
We started with the statistic that half of the students we engage do not have a clear career goal. This survey was conducted among 400 college students. The trend that we see in the future is that more people may be confused by the abundance of career choices exploding in the market. What parents consider "not a real job" can now earn good money. Moreover, with the increasing tendency for more people to participate in the "gig economy", we expect that fewer people will end up with a straightforward career path.
Are students mainly guided by parents in career choices, or are they really free to choose?
In Thailand, career choice is influenced by close family members. Because of the education system, students are restricted in career decisions. Because of the nature of our society, the majority of students have no real work experience and are still very much dependent on their parents for security. In many families, career choice is not based only on the individual. Especially if analytical skills are less practiced, it is very hard for one to reflect on one's own thoughts and recognise any ideal choice. Therefore, most of the time, we find parents take over those decisions.
Do the students change their minds, or reach decisions, arising from your advice?
Our process of "Career Design" allows students to make their own decisions from their own "experience" rather than our advice. We had an engineering graduate who spent three months with us to re-direct himself onto a business track. A future auditor turned into an entrepreneur. But those decisions have come through a process of taking action and reflecting from those actions. The point is to design an experience that would allow people to take control of their own decisions and be accountable for them.
Since you give your advice free of charge, how do you finance your activities?
Most support comes from employers who seek access and want to develop a community of driven talent. Most of the strategic and long-term partners share our vision. We have been supported by both global and local companies such as JobThai.com, Banpu, Krungsri, PepsiCo, Axa. We also provide service directly to universities as many more are concerned with student employability.
What are CareerVisa's future plans?
We are finding ways to help more people make the right career decisions using our "Career Design" tool. We are now finding ways to upscale our impact through this tool, working with universities both in Bangkok and in the provinces. As we are entering an aging society, we need to ensure the productivity of the younger generation. Youth career decisions have a great effect on how we are optimising our human resources and progressing towards a competitive future. CareerVisa is also seeking ways to explore how we can contribute to a greater society through governmental collaboration.
For more information contact Ms. Pin Kasemsiri at pin.kasemsiri@gmail.com
Series Editor: Christopher F. Bruton is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult's Thailand Regional Forum provides seminars and extensive documentation to update business on future trends in Thailand and in the Mekong Region.