Education plays a crucial role in the development of countries like India, which is rapidly transforming in to a powerful economy with demographic advantage. But unfortunately, majority of Indian institutions fail to prepare students/graduates for the newly emerging working environment, making them struggle while facing the competencies of the professional realm. India’s education system still hovers around traditional methods of teaching where onus is solely on developing intellectual capabilities & scoring marks. In contrast, out of the seven lakh engineers graduating every year, merely seven percent are fit for core engineering jobs; that indicate huge disparity in supply and demand of skilled manpower due to the shortage of technical and interpersonal communication skills.

Bridging this gap is Bangalore-based Academics & Beyond (A&B) that renders a comprehensive suite of training/counseling programs and employability skills required to excel in today’s competitive global workplace. “With the tagline of ‘Beyond academics, in pursuit of success’, we are committed to help our clients succeed both personally and professionally,” avers Swapna Nadig NK, Founder, Academics & Beyond. The company’s customized flagship offerings including StepUp2Excel (employability & personality excellence program), APEx (academic & personality excellence program) and Career Planning/Counseling (PlanMyCareer for students & PlanMyCareerMove for working professionals) not only enhance skills of graduates & working professionals, but also promote students’ (9th standard onwards) success by focusing on their academic achievement along with their social, personal & emotional development.

Having a special focus on upskilling students/fresh graduates, A&B incorporates all the essential Career/Life Skills & topics

Company’s delivery methodology is based on an iterative framework called ADDRES (Assess, Develop, Deliver, RE-assess, Succeed), where it first assesses each participant, performs a SWOT analysis and uses this data to customize the training/counselingf. This unique science-based methodology makes its entire range of programs more efficient, adaptable & useful. Besides, A&B’s two standalone Psychometric assessments services, DiscoverMySelf (personality assessment) and DiscoverMyCareerInterest (career interest profiler), play an instrumental role in making young Indians job-ready and addressing the mounting needs & demands of the industry.

Concentrating on Fresher’s Upskilling

Having a special focus on upskilling students/fresh graduates, A&B incorporates all the essential Career/Life Skills & topics such as positive thinking, enhancing self-confidence, emotional intelligence,

goal setting, dealing with procrastination, time management & organizational skills, communication skills, assertiveness, teaming, presentation and other skills, which further help them to lead successful professional & personal life.

Each topic is supported with practical activities giving realistic experience to candidates. The company has created a device-independent virtual campus called A&B Learning Portal for assessment administration and collaboration needs. It also plans to launch self-paced online courses soon, and ensures all the content goes through a rigorous quality check process and are delivered by experts possessing over a decade of experience. These unique features earned A&B over 60 five-star rating on Google by its users.

The company that was founded by professionals having a combined experience of 25+ years upholds a team of on-demand consultants under proprietorship and mentors. These experts help participants identify right career path and suggest them best suited courses according to their personality & career interests. “Within one year, we have served over 500 individuals along with hundreds of students who underwent training at educational institutions,” adds Swapna. A&B is currently focusing on providing value-based services at affordable cost and becoming one amongst top three destinations for soft skills training & counseling services in the country. To accomplish the same, the venture is in process of signing MoUs with four educational institutes & HR consulting firms, and strives to cater nearly 5000 students/graduates in 2019.