 Hi there. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever you're joining us from. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Abhijit Bhaduri. I am the author of this book that you see behind me. It's called Career 3.0, which is really talking about all the changes that are happening in careers driven partly by artificial intelligence. Of course, everybody knows that there is stuff that is happening because of changes in demography. There are changes that are happening in the environment climate. That's a big shift. There are, of course, immigration laws, political systems, regulations. There's so much more. And today my guest actually is going to be talking about some of these things. I work as a coach. I work as a person who helps organizations and individuals develop their skilling strategy and upskill themselves because we are entering the skills economy and this is where all the action is going to be. So, having the right kind of skills is going to be very important because all of us are going to be living to be close to a hundred years. That means we've added 30 more years to the working life, which fundamentally means that we have to think about the skills that we bring to the table in order to remain relevant. Now, when I thought about skilling, there was one person I really wanted to have you meet. What is interesting is this person actually wanted to be a cricketer and when that didn't quite work out, wanted to be an investigative journalist. And as far as her passion is concerned, did I get that away? I said, her, she actually loved riding the motorbike and going all over the place. What is this person doing today? Well, she founded a company, a company called Team Lease, which really hit more than a billion dollars in revenue. And I want to introduce to you, Ritu Paranath Chakraborty, co-founder of Team Lease. Was it an accurate introduction, Ritu? Yeah, I mean, it sounds really good. I mean, I lived your life all that happened in my life. Which of these are you most embarrassed about and which are you most proud about? Why are you proud about everything? No, I'm not embarrassed with either one of those choices, I guess. Unfortunately, the unlucky salon goes, wishes and passion to truly ban out the way I thought it would. But I think I learned from each of those. So I still got to play cricket. I still play on and off, but of course, not representing India. I don't think I became an investigative journalist with any phone, but I think I was, I think I have. I came close to being a columnist to some extent and biking I received again after 35 years. You said you wanted to be an investigative journalist. What was the driving motivation? What do you want to really dig deep into and find out? Mainly I was influenced a lot by what was happening in the environment, the political, economic scenario. I probably was sharing the word corruption quite a bit popping up here and there. And there was some role modeling happening, I guess somewhere subconsciously because I was seeing some articles which were being written, which were like high impact. And then I think there was some, if I'm not mistaken, some television series also, which probably I was seeing, which actually we were talking about how intense it could be to become an investigative journalist for risky challenges. So for me, adventure always had a thing. And side by side, I think I'm not writing. I think our behavior to tell a story, which is factual yet compelling, which moves. I think all of it put together somewhere, maybe. I don't know whether I put much thought to it at that time, but this is what I can guess. So when you were growing up, what kind of a childhood was this? Did you live in one city? Did you grow up in one city? Or did you live all over the place? So my father is a general surgeon. So he was associated with a company called Interstate Virtualizer Corporation in a small town called Durgaput. It's an industrial town. So I actually didn't move much. Dad was associated as a deep medical officer. So he was there and posted. And I went to the only convent school. And of course, those days, a highly reputed one called Carmen Convent. For boys, it was saviours. For girls, it was Carmen. So I went to Carmen. I thought I'd create education. A lot of what I am, probably my values, probably comes from, of course, my parents. And not much movement. It was a very quiet life in Durgaput. Kids had only two things by the way. Kids could do, if you're a child, you have only two options, which is either become an engineer or become a doctor. And if you want to become anything else, pretty much you are being useless. So you were surrounded by engineers and doctors all the time. All uncles that I were seeing around. They're doctors or teachers. That's how life was very quiet. All of this, someone like me, I mean, I was seeking adventure at every looking corner in my ways. Many of the templates that were created for us, you know, social templates, I mean, I just went out of Durgaput with most of them. And because of some of my actions there on, I even earned the tag of being, you would understand or visit, or push on scripting. I mean, often, very often, because of some of my choices. But since it was life, it was fun. Somebody who defies the cultural norms, that's the loose translation. Yeah, fantastic. Who were some of the authors that you read? Shrata Jitray, I think, clearly has had a deep experience, strong childhood. I think it was beyond my age, but I did try reading some other authors, which were like, at those points, kids were not allowed to. But I think if I were to call one person, because of how simplistically he wrote, what inspired me about Shrata Jitray's style of writing is that in comparison to a lot of other authors, whether it's in English or in Bengali, would love to throw a lot of these big words. What I thought Mr. Ray did was, he used such easy, yet he could intricately, like he was, for me, the words. He used simple words to create magic where the entire story is playing in your mind. Right? I think yes. I would say, and of course, Annette Blighton, why not? I mean, I know today's kids don't. I mean, when I was growing up, my entire life was surrounded by sound right now. But I don't know what I would have done without Annette Blighton those days. So every series that was written by Annette Blighton, I think I've read it. And I wish sometimes my doctors and today's children and kids read them also. Like, you know, having those images of a broken U.K. where you're going for a picnic in one corner with a picnic basket, you know, scorns and creams. I mean, the specialization goes to, you know, and you all of them. It's two books I traveled. Yeah, I think, you know, the way you put it is that it's very easy to live multiple lives, you know, when you read books. And that's one of the big things about what Shrata Jitray also did. You know, when I think about the influence he had on my worldview, you know, where I read a lot of it as well. Across generations, I think, you know, when I think about my first book was, you know, stuff that his father had written and his grandfather had written. You know, there was things that I did. And then, of course, I got fascinated by his art. I used to edit this magazine called Shandesh and I used to sort of just get fascinated, watch the cover of each issue of Shandesh with great admiration of how he did the topography or the kind of choice of colors and everything. I mean, this was really the fanboy kind of description that you would say. Of course, that's a big comment and also if I may add. I'm unique comics. Like, I have, even now, I have all the entire Tintin collection, for example. So for me, her, Tintin, it's like, it's epic. I've read Indra Jal comics. You name it. I mean, I was like every, I was one of those people, rare people who had a subscription of Indra Jal. So whether it's Phantom, Indian Phantom, Bahadur, Flash Quarter, you name it. So Archie, so I had no specific genre. The other thing was my grandfather actually had my maternal grandfather was actually the first newspaper distribution of the entire Assam territory. And Assam was much bigger than what it is today. And in Tinshipya, he had this large bookstore. So if I'm in love for reading, I actually started from that bookstore. So whenever I would visit from morning, I would just accompany my Masi or my mama. I would just sit on that entire thing became my word. Things that happened for reading just started there somehow. You know, I want to sort of move to your days in college when you were trying to figure out what you want to pursue by way of a career. And I know that you did economics and you did math and statistics with it and at BHU. What were you thinking of doing after that? What was it going to prepare you to do? Or did you have a clear view of what career meant for you? So like San, you know, I was just going through that phase. Sometimes a cricket toss, sometimes an investigative journalist. And then of course, socially both of them those days were probably unacceptable. And I couldn't help pursuit either one of them. So somewhere I was picking up a couple of feedback, you know, which is feedback upon people appreciating my organization skills, people appreciating my leadership skills, people appreciating how I can manage a bunch of extremely diverse, sometimes eccentric people and still make them do stuff, right? What kind? You know, give me an example. I'll give you an example. So suddenly, like this isn't, this was like I was about to get into college. I was at 11th and 12th when my mom one day just came and sent this and the entire cultural program because everyone was getting tagged for with the program because it was always about having with you regards to the show and get your entire four days on just video with the show and people were obviously. So then she said, we have decided it's not the onus is on you going to parents from the adults. You will have to pan every day what's going to happen. And I was really young. And I think I said, okay, fine. It's great opportunity. I have been complaining about how boring. So let's do it. So I went around essentially and mobilizing my friends, the girls, the boys, kids. And I think I took charge of those four days and it became now. I mean, our parents who Joe or our clubs who Joe became like talked about the entire the entire community. So they are such she made a change completely about how programs can be some small, small stuff like that happen. We don't know how you manage these kind of crazy, unruly kids and still made them do something in college. I had experience. I'm not sure you were there. The fight I have used to happen once upon a time in university. And it's a crisis point, right? Then you suddenly proper comes in and says you have to be your to break it right. So you can't beat much. So entire long time of the university crisis and it's a panic situation. So a lot of people who've left home and come, they're not really, they don't know what to do. So I think again, sitting together, putting together a tea kind of help everyone first foremost, calm down and be able to figure out who is going to take which train. You didn't have reservations to go back home. When the end up planning and by now this is not she, you know, one of the safest of places for women. So just to be sure that that's also kind of taken care of the timing and so on and so forth. There were many other, you know, taking on the institution kind of issues which were happening in Banaras and one fine day I realized I've been elected as general secretary because of stuff that I was probably doing. And then I also became the president of the final year all by election. My father didn't want me to. She's like, he's like, you're not paying attention to study. I don't want to be on the phone so that they don't vote for me or they don't select me. But then I come back and I realized in absentia I have reported. So I guess somewhere I started picking up that maybe people have faith in me. They trust me to kind of take on projects. They need somebody like me to probably lead. I mean, I never felt I wanted to be a leader but I always found myself in positions where I had to take charge and get things done. So somewhere I've been maybe in NBA could be a good thing. Manage and run some streets. So maybe that's how it started up with your life. How large the team is? How many employees? You just give me a little bit of a sense of the numbers for the benefit of viewers. I know it's a little more than a billion. Is that correct? Yeah, almost a turnover would be in and around that amount of the current offline turnover. I think in terms of headcount, we are 300,000 plus people who are active on the roads right now. So yeah, it's one of the largest probably employers. And I think over the course of since our existence, a little over 2 million lights have been hired and provided the job of dignity through us and then moved on to better lights and better careers. And that's essentially was the purpose of taking place with 14 weeks purpose and vision, which moved me. Somebody who's a small town girl like he was putting India to work. And I know how difficult it was for me because after my graduation, I really didn't want to go into my NBA. I wanted to go and work any job, just give me any job. And I know how much I struggled to find that any job, right? Which has everything, you know, has some decent pay, dignity, everything. So then when I learned that, yeah, we're going to try and put in gear to work, I think we actualized it. For the benefit of those who don't know or haven't heard of it, you know, what does it do and where are we working before that? What made the switch? So what does team leads do? Essentially there are a lot of youth out there who are in precarious job. Two kind of situations that they don't have a job or they have a job. It could be through an informal contractor or an informal agency. They don't know what their entitlements are, what their basics that they should be provided for. They don't also have access to get a chance to work with some of these large organizations because of the background maybe that they come from, right? I mean, I've noticed some of the 13 national, they have very high standards of who they want to hire on their roads, right? But there are many out there. There are lots and lots of youth who want to get a chance. Just being there at that organization, they'll learn so much that they don't know how to do it. So we have team leads. What we've been trying to do is for those kind of vulnerable youth, provide them with a platform and access. They can have no experience or maybe as little as six months, one year experience, even in an informal form of work. And we try and match them based on their skill sets to some of the requirements which are temporary and time-bound in nature. What's the benefit for organizations? Organizations are also trying new ideas. They're trying to look at new territories. They're launching new products. They have projects which are time-bound and they're seeking flexibility of finding skilled youth or youth who have the right attitude. But it's going to be for a fixed duration. Some of them actually have the intention of doing contract to hire, which means they would try you out for a fixed duration and it would really good and give you an opportunity to work. Believe it or not, almost 50% of our attrition used to happen on account or be absorbed by the principal employer. So it was working. That's what team leads does. Primarily, that's how we started. Eventually, of course, we realized there is a huge open skill. There's a huge skill gap because of which when we had 15,000 open positions, thousands of applicants, only 3,000 would get hired. And that's largely happening because of the skill mismatch. So that's how team leads started to employ ability, whether it's in terms of acquiring an institute, training institute, setting up a skill university, creating this complete tsunami-a-rod apprenticeship around the country where actually employers can create a future talent by employing apprenticeship. And of course, then we realized that there are so much inefficiencies in the workplaces which can be solved through technology, whether it's ed tech, rect tech, and chart tech, higher tech solutions, which just improves the overall productivity. So that's what team leads does. I was working for Monster, which is a multinational. I was making tons of money. I was the most successful salesperson in Asia-Pacific, repeatedly and consistently. But honestly, somewhere, I was also feeling that with due regards, that at main, the organization, I somehow felt maybe as a woman about this hit-up let-all, I may not grow beyond the set. That's when Manish and Ashok, they were talking with this idea, who are earlier than that. I mean, I also work part of Indian life. That's how I'm associated with Ashok. We went into payroll administration, benefits administration, and then business ed to become sold to QA, then hold hands there on. I think we realized that there is a distinct opportunity and that was forced to the organization where a lot of multinationals were looking sort of contingent human resource solution. They wanted a flexible model, but they wanted to work with someone that they can trust, who is reliable, who is compliant, who can offer services all over the country. Because there were a lot of involvement workshops in specific places. We felt that we had a great opportunity. We had a great opportunity to meet the requirements of these organizations and side-by-side get 80% of the workforce, which currently are in some form of precarious work or no work. Get them into the ecosystem of formal workforce. This would be the nice con view, which kind of enables that. So that's how I think I got motivated. I thought, yes, this is something which is three of my requirements. One, I want to do something which is, of course, file. Every day has to be filed. No compromise on that. Secondly, it has to be an economically viable and commercially viable business, not for profit. I'm actually going to, for a great cause, but it's a profitable organization. Third, it has to do well for India. It has to make a difference of impact for India. And I think in team piece, I felt that all these three things came together. When you felt it was actually doing good for India, what were some of those markers that you looked at? The fact that it was providing employment of dignity to the youth, which those days, kind of social, you know, myths and taboos around anything contractual. I remember I was, myself tried to write, I have a kids for clients requirement. And this guy, he's unemployed, obviously. And he was saying that, no madam, go unemployed, he care about contract job being like, I'm not going to take up contractual job. I'm not sure what I'm going to say. So, I guess one of the things that we did is, we made something and temporary work acceptable and the fact that it has dignity and we proved it to them. You know, through the kind of choices, practices that we implemented. And then they got an employment letter, they got an employment kit. Some of these people, I never seen, they have got an ID card. I mean, you might say these are very simple things, but for those kids it made a whole lot of distance because they're never seeing that recognition before. So I guess the change in their body language where they felt that they were worthy that they have a shot at the future I think was a huge adrenaline rush for me. I used to see it every day. Recently when I walked down from the lift of the or near the staircase or wherever I can see through the body language of these kids who walk in that who got an asset at that day who didn't. It's sad that in spite of what we've done we've actually only impacted five percent have given jobs to only five percent of the kids who walked into us but yes even those five percent would have been zero to be honest. I think that's the change we managed to do so that's one good if the fact that a solution like this is enabling large multinational to take a bet on India you know and this is the only thing no but it's a very important thing the fact that there is an enabler for flexible talent knowledge better for a complex country like India which is riddled with thousands of great intellectual laws and there's someone can navigate through one of them with them. It is great for India so I think I mean I can list down another 20 but I think what are what are these are the two very compelling reasons or where I saw directing back to India. In my book I talk about three kinds of career paths. Career one is the traditional one where you learn earn and retire you join a job and then you retire from that you might change employers in between but fundamentally one skill which is monetized. Career two not always something like what you've done which is the gig work you know the contract work and variety of reasons. It could be because the people are not skilled enough to find employment or they don't have the opportunities or it could be because somebody wants to pick up a new skill somebody wants to move to a different city and is looking to get to the edge start can be multiple reasons and of course career 3.0 is three or more skills monetized and three or more recourse systems. So you know that's the premise of this each one of these actually has a certain kind of a business case. If you see that it's a myth to think that it's only the people in corporate jobs which is called public sector which is let's say learn earn and retire a career one auto model that's actually a myth because you find performers you know in the performing art Sonal Man Singh has been a dancer all her life that's what she does and then if you have Glatha Mangeshwar or she's been a singer right from the time she was in her teens all the way till the last day when she passed away. So I think most people are you know they do stop like that scientists are in that so but sort of a lot of people a second career or a second sort of gig is an opportunity to really start to grow their skills in a different area altogether. Is that how you see team leads and the you know the way careers are being shaped. I still got myself a job I can't thank you enough for articulating these 30 30 years honestly. It's so well put and I was just reflecting that I would have scored it let's say 25 years back 25 years back maybe almost like 50 percent of India maybe a little more 60 percent of India and that it's just career 1.2 and maybe that's all people were thinking at that point and then maybe a little more alignment with career 2.0 but career 3.0 probably was not existent at that point right and people were not thinking how can you do like three four how does it even work and thankfully in my journey with team leads I have started witnessing the transition from career 1.0 as the only thing that's possible to emergence of career 2.0 and then now career 2.0 is probably the fastest buy and that is what my assessment is whether people admit it or not and then you are also seeing the tale of career 3.0 very like wonderfully emerging amidst the debate of moonlight day and freelancing and whatnot right the way I see myself and the way I see the world around telling thoughts emerging is that eventually career 1.2 I mean it's food saying almost is going to deserve you you cannot give them the kind of unpredictability that lays ahead us given what even COVID taught many of us right COVID really not anyone who thought that I can be unique I mentioned a lot I can just present one skill and that's how I would can lead success for your life was completely challenged with shattered probably and hence career 2.0 and 3.0 is what's going to be the reality and the more we are able to build ourselves I feel it's the it's your best career insurance is to be able to have three four skills which you cannot it's the writing is very clearly on the wall right now that there is no other way I thankfully through the English give that I've been in the talent landscape I have seen that job show again the next 10 years you will see the transition where career 1.2 would be a negative 10 20% of the representation of enterprise workplaces it's going to be largely career 2.2 and 3.0 I mean time will tell but that's how I look at and fantastic honesty I'm glad that your book will make make people think and realize that accept most importantly then it's possible and I should think about and I should not have this feeling of entitlement then my employer by the way is responsible for my sustainance my success any the shift in terms of who manages your career has to found it to us we have to become the central point of how we determine our life to be especially professional you know so much is changing in that space because people really now you know there's been a debate about moonlighting that you know whether a second job or a third job is really being fair as long as there is no conflict of interest my personal belief is that it's something which you know should be encouraged for the simple reason that it helps people build and be prepared for what is going to come in future because the organization never guarantees employment never life therefore the person is responsible for managing that employability for themselves so you know if they want to do a second skin and monetize it we should really get away from the stigma behind that because when you monetize it you're forced to be really good at it otherwise if you are just dabbling in something nobody takes you seriously so I think that's one of the first ways in which I think about career 2.0 being legitimizing the fact that it's for everybody because when you think about it senior directors become directors on the board of multiple companies that you know a career 2.0 yeah there is a person sort of becomes a stand-up comedian at some point of time in their career they love doing it I mean you know Amit Thandan is a great example of somebody who used to run a IT business IT firm has become a stand-up comedian with a very successful show Netflix and doing great on that or you think about people like David Patnaik who's you know was trained as a doctor then you know started writing about medical practices and somebody noticed the skin of writing and then he started to do a course in mythology and then moved on to become indians arguably the best known mythologist absolutely so I think these models are right there in front of us these are opportunities for us to really start thinking how do we span out a career that is going to last for about a hundred years if you just realize that all of us are going to live to be close to 100 have you think about your career let's assume you start working at 2025 whatever be that number and you have to go on all the way to close to 100 what are the reasons which you can stay relevant because you know you may want to work but if you don't have the skills to do it nobody's going to let you work so you know entrepreneurship is going to become important working with different skills is going to become important how have you planned you know if you were to really start thinking wait for you know a decade two decades ahead what do you foresee yourself doing I mean even if that doesn't happen but how would you sort of imagine it you know I was the reason and it's the first time I'm probably publicly speaking about my stepping down for my role executive role at team B's when the reason for that was of course for me team B's was in a way if you look at it career 1.0 right for me it was career 1.0 but within me there are somebody who does like happening in multiple mind to have multiple interests and have a eagerness to develop additional skill sets it's very easy today for us as professionals when you are in a job which is doing great just make that present continuous for you then why do you want to disturb the comfort the stability that comes with something which is going fine and hence why do you need to disturb it but to be honest I felt that if I don't disrupt myself right now my next 50 years if 100 years is what I would live for the next half of my life I mean end up being very unhappy and also irrelevant somewhere somewhere there was this fact that yeah I mean I have developed a very strong skill set and doing that job I have developed multiple skill sets honestly so I'm just going through your six points and I felt many of them are ticked off already team B's thankfully but the fact that there is a world beyond which I'm not going to tap into this lifetime of course I needed great first and foremost you know I like giving this analogy that if you're working out every day of the job right and you're good at it then you're doing it every day you're putting in the and you don't waste a single day one every day 100 minutes or whatever it is but then if you do not give time for recovery to your muscles to sit very strange skill set the very same skill on the goodness that you're trying to accrue will go in the reverse direction what's going to happen you'll have injuries you'll have a spams and one knows what else so I think the same way it is for us in our careers I think the fact that I needed recovery was was just staring on my face that and hence I should do that and then now is the time for me to take this risk and chances that's what we would like to see it as so explore what else can I do if somebody asked me like many people have asked me off late that what do you want to do or do what is it to be honest the first answer that comes to my mind is I don't know and I feel very liberated saying the fact that I do not have a presumptuous hypothesis into my future is extremely relaxing right now of course I am doing some of the skills I have I'm leveraging I'm advising some startups who keep reaching out to be in terms of how to scale their business I'm on various boards lot of friends who are starting new startups they're using me as a sounding for I'm learning languages but I think I am very confident that it's doing like I'm pursuing I love art by the way I mean I never got a chance to do that when I was working and two of my friends reminded me you were good with colors so I don't you just just flash something and start doing something so that's one I'm resumed by K I'm writing a lot more which I love it way actually do I have so much problem with my mind is that I have an opinion of my heavy dancing horror and hence articulating it in a manner which connects I connect with kids and students at youth very well so is there a way that I can have meaningful conversations and shape their minds looking at the entire horizon that's an open slate for me but what I know is that I want to do stuff which needs an impact which changes and improves lives whether it's in India or anywhere else but the fact that gives me a like you know it's still fake is that it has to software effect like it's something out here so let's see I think I have not made any choice yet but I know it's going to be the next 50 the next half of my life is going to be even if I pick up another executive role of which I would definitely be a career it would be a generally I would love to be career 3.0 even if there is a certain amount of involvement that it would be a pre-declared choice and this is how I want my life to be like I've been discussing with you I mean I've been encouraged often to write to write to cook you definitely inspire me you know writing is one of the most rewarding things for me because when you write one of the things that happens is you get ideas and feedback and suggestions and critiquing and everything from just a huge number of people which no other way that you can sort of really get that and that allows you to grow as a person it's therefore extremely meaningful and fulfilling so yes certainly somebody like you needs to sort of really start putting ideas out there and maybe as you travel through different parts of the country on your bike to write about what you see are changing aspirations that's you know that's a book that I wish I would write someday how are these aspirations changing for people yeah what if you notice you've seen them you know what do people want to do I mean you talk to so many people what are the aspirations you know the best way to see the changing aspirations of India or how India is changing if either way is to visit our airports and remember when I used to earlier take on my flights 20-20 years back this is a very stimulus way of making a judgment but I'm telling you it's a compelling way how people used to dress in airports and now you go to airports and how people actually stress like laws for example that's essentially an indicator of the rising aspirations and their ability to even fund the aspiration I mean I do believe that every possible economic indicator with India in spite of many things that's not fixed have improved and it is telling and it's showing so for example the person who cooks in my house is that person's daughter will not ever be a cook she's clear daughter is clear and she's working hard to ensure that her daughter essentially has an office job for example that's how they decide so I guess India is not going to settle for the life that they currently inhabit or is surrounding them I think at every point even if the fact to see so much of mobility still in labor a budget is an indication that I am not going to make peace with my environment my circumstances I'm going to make an effort to change it so if people in boats are moving from UP BR to the southern states or to the west is because in spite of the struggle in spite of not getting used to the weather or the food there is a distinct increase in income through which they can give themselves and their children a better life of course there are many things I think I have noticed hunger of youth who aren't from economically not so uplifted backgrounds is much higher even in the employment world even in our workplace people who are born and brought up with the cities have a different sense of entitlement and approach towards work then ones who are coming from smaller towns and cities because they really want to make a difference they want to succeed because they have not seen that and they want a better life so I guess I feel net of it India is progressing in the right direction because I see hunger like intra structurally it's in the pits so sorry I don't want to watch it but what's like floods happen with just a little bit of rain roads are not working the day works from office gets declared there is traffic jam everywhere in fact Bangalore is shining today Bangalore is like you know the far the average minimum wage keeps increasing you can't find higher anyone in Bangalore less than if for any job like any job hiring anyone less than 25-26,000 is unthinkable it's happening because of the hunger and intensity of the people who's taking the city ahead economically so in spite of the absence of infrastructure so I guess that's what's happening in India and I feel that's all aspiration that people want a better life and youth want a better life and I honestly feel government should not keep up with that as she is a government job still the most aspired to role that people want to get started with or is that a thing of the past you know when you think about the smaller cities away from the metros is that still something that people dream of I am noticing that in economically not so uplifted states government jobs still is so on so even if there is one ads stories from lots of people applying to some 10 jobs are true but that's because they don't have anything better that's how they're seeking stability in their lives I'm not too sure if such an ad question comes out it's been a while since I've seen such an ad is released in a state of Karnataka I'm not sure you will see that kind of rehab of people wanting I mean it is aspirational and if you're looking for job security and stability but with today's youth I don't know I'm not too sure they feel that there are options for them outside of that and the fact that you have seen so many employment models emerging in this country or let me just say likelihood audience with the resurgence of gay three non-saying and so on and so forth there are options by which they can maximize their earnings so even if somebody doesn't want to competitively be a swiggy delivery boy or a overdrive they know that if I slog for the next two years I can have like improved my learning capacity by doing more ads so I guess not too sure when the government jobs have that she equitable sheen across all states but the states where there is really nothing no job even 10 jobs advertised by the government I want to spend a little bit of time understanding your passion for apprenticeship you know and that's something that you played a very stellar role in shaping the way apprenticeship happens in India so I think a lot of millions of people will thank you for making that shift happen talk to me about what made you pursue that kind of change in the legislation or reform or talk to me about that and give people in the background about what was the from and to that you changed I think the turning point or the push came from the fact that I mean I had a daily view or I had the front seat view of the agony and I just see your freedom labor market where we add those 15,000 odd open positions at any given point of time and in spite of the passive lineups we could not close for them three 4,000 kids and that's happening because the kids who we are sending like you know I used to get worried but it is a particular problem in India we were seeing it live and I'm sure it falls out with every employer for one job role 100 kids are being interviewed and looked at and still sometimes they don't find and then if they are lucky they would find three shortlist that's a huge burden like if you look at it and if you look at it from a business owner's perspective it's a huge wastage and that's all becomes part of your cost of acquisition so what is going on in India where there are people believe there's a large population apparently it is should yield demographic dividend for us but it's not and on the other hand we have our lawyers were saying I'm not finding the right people so we felt that killing is one so one shot at it and honestly we didn't contribute on a British ship at the first instance we said okay and I just have training institute there must be a repair problem these guys just need to put lipstick on the pig and that's it so let's just do training finishing school concept and that's how IIGT acquisition happened but then what we soon realized is that you can't repair when the preparation itself has been brought so in India the entire education system is not really preparing kids for jobs they're preparing kids for knowledge maybe but no one's hiring for knowledge people are hiring for skills so I think that's when we said no this is a much bigger problem that's how tingly skill university happened but then that's solving for the theoretical part we felt that the best solution would be that when kids come out of 10th or 12th rather than that choosing the traditional path of going to a college where which would churn out another unemployable graduate because employers don't want to hire that kid because he has no job ready skills why not have encourage and in a massive fine manner it's to take up an apprenticeship program with organizations where on the job they own the skills for employers it's not a prohibitive cost because you are paying them a stipend which is such if he takes care of their ana jaana rena khanika prasa kind of a thing and you are creating your job giving them imparting them on the job training and creating a future pipeline out of 100 people an organization gives the apprenticeship to if they feel that they have vacancy for 10 of them they can definitely move them and honestly that's the best way to acquire talent these talent is already marinated with the organization's values and culture and the ever-changing skills at the workplace but the balance 90 or a bit is invaluable contribution to the whole country and it's because those kids are very much in demand they have become highly employable their ability to find that break which otherwise young stressors don't get it's high much improved and that's when it occurred to us that India's missing layer in their employment journey ecosystem is the missing apprenticeship layer since independence still recently we did not have more than 300 400 000 apprentices by in a country like Germany we have 1.52 million we are about 15 of their workforce we are a 490 million workforce and 400 000 apprentices that essentially tells the story that what's the problem why is it we have such a huge issue so that's when we said apprenticeship is the way to go and but legislation has to change for it to become attractive for both and florals as well as the Riga was being more by the way than at stipend we just stipend wants for apprenticeship had to be changed so I get that journey we spent I think we spent about many years from 2008 kind of changed the narrative around apprenticeship and subsequently we've seen changes in regulations and it's improved but down the line we also realized that the research adiote are rigid in India so you can't really know the degree ecosystem completely is there a way by which you can use the apprenticeship credit to set it off as credits to getting themselves a degree that's how the birthing of the concept of degree apprenticeship happened and that's why we put all our weight behind it and let's marry the possibility of an apprenticeship program with getting themselves the degree and let's get universities all across the country too and so running around that's to make it happen it improves the outcome of whatever effort they've and yeah I mean of course there are still things to be sorted out but I'm sure the team is looking into it but at least the feeding has been done people are thinking in this line in this country and that itself is killer you know we are coming up towards the end and I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes asking you about the book career 3.0 you were one of the earlier readers you've got the advanced versions of the book which are some of the skills that connected with you and you know and if you didn't like any of them that's fine too to say I don't want to set it up tell me two good things kind of thing no I mean if you did like if that's fine what are the things that you think that connected with you I think the kill that I personally think most people uh did not give as much I don't know what it is whether it's a social thing but the fact that you have to take responsibility for building a personal brand of which I talk about the others also but I'm choosing to talk about it is that building a personal brand doesn't mean that you are being paid it is essentially the fact that you're creating an identity for yourself which is distinct from who your other associations and allegiance are which means who your employer is who your spouse is when you talk about yourself about the change of the fact that you can create your environment it's not something where you're being pompous and I'm telling you the reason I'm calling it out because I do know and I have people in my own ecosystem who thinks that their job I think then is just to like other people's posts and everyone else is elected creates content our work constantly publishing they're just being just something as simple as that I think it's important for us to look beyond our designations and get ourselves identified with what the certain skills attributes that we bring to the table that should become essential to our identity and you have to that's why put effort into it you know I have seen people when they need a job suddenly uh something I mean they're looking desperately is when they start moving around LinkedIn now that doesn't create credibility what's your brand why would people want to reach out to you or connect with you because it's a given a day word like people feed off each other and your what is it that your band brings to the table is important so I think that's one thing which I said resonated on the last one which is how to build a portfolio of skills and careers like a venture capital I think most of us don't think about and honestly this break right now our business has compelled me to think and put together that maybe I haven't ever recognized it but is it possible for me to now look at skills that I bring to the table which is we're not even connected with each other being disjointed and disconnected but yet stand alone they actually are a valuable set of skills so all of the others that you mentioned definitely I think goes without saying but the last one which I would talk about is that how to tell stories everyone aspires for leadership and being in position for influence eventually I feel after calling uh it's not your cognitive skill sets it's your ability to craft and create and share inspiring stories of the present or the stories you want to see being created in the future if you do not have the ability to communicate and share that which connects with humans and not bots then honestly you will face redundancy after you're not an interesting person to be around and I'm not talking about just fact or to meet substance right what's the point of substance if you don't know how to communicate absolutely well we are coming up to the top of the hour and thank you so very much you know you are a person that I always think that who's done so many things I have great admiration for the way you build the institution I have great admiration for the ways in which you've created opportunities for a very large number of people in India you know I have the deepest admiration for that more than that I think I want to say that you know the way you are transforming yourself despite being so successful that's a real top one because you know when you are writing a wave of success it's so easy to become competent and then just you know continue being there but to actually extricate yourself and rethink possibilities is just one of the most inspirational things and I think if many people think of you as a role model this is what they will think of you as a role model for thank you so very much for your time and sharing your ideas thank you thank you so much good to be here