Ms. Surabhi Dewra, CEO & Founder – Careerguide.com
With an ambition to provide equal education and career opportunities to everyone Ms. Surabhi Dewra founded Careerguide.com. Through Careerguide.com she aims to provide right information and guidance to the students even in the remotest regions of the country. She has been awarded “Best Career Counselling Initiative” by the Ministry of Human Resource & Development and presented by M. M. Pallam Raju –Minister of Human Resource and Development.
Career counselling has always been Surabhi’s passion and over the years she has gained insights on the whole procedure of career counselling and excelled in it. “I believe that having the right information about your skills and talents can help you to grab the right career opportunity at the right time. For my career, the next step would definitely be bringing all the students from even the smallest of the villages under the umbrella of career counselling. This can help them to understand the opportunities, financial aids and support that they have in order to pursue any career”, she says.
Surabhi has also been a fellow at ISB – Goldman Sachs Women Entrepreneur’s program. Besides her work she is also associated with educational NGOs. She is a graduate in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India. Here are some more insights about Ms. Surabhi Dewra & her venture, shared with the team of ABT.
Tell us about the journey of MeraCareerGuide.com and its evolution
If I remember my yester years when CareerGuide.com was not there, I was always a person who was much concerned about education. Not only I supported education for all, but I myself was also much sincere towards education. During college, I used to work with volunteers and taught to the needy students. At that time, I got an opportunity to organise a career event in the college that opened my eyes towards a large gap between the available opportunities and access of them to the students. That was actually the first step towards building of CareerGuide.com. As I started progressing on this, I got connected with like-minded people and with the support of them CareerGuide.com has reached the place where it is now.
What has been your biggest challenge as a women entrepreneur?
I think challenges are mostly similar for both men and women entrepreneurs. I don’t find any particular thing that stopped me for being a woman. I have seen failures as well as successes during this journey and I think all of them have given me a learning experience that I cherish and take as an experience for the future challenges that are about to come.
What is that one milestone in your life that makes you happy and proud?
There is not one milestone in my life which excited me. I find all my goals as exciting and challenging which keeps me motivated towards working for them. I have always tried to work on a bigger goal once I achieve the already set one. Now, I am waiting for my next milestone of reaching in all the villages and smaller towns to increase the access of career counselling.
Who is your greatest inspiration & why?
I get inspiration from all the people who work hard for their aims and face hardships with grace. It’s not necessary that he/ she should be a famous personality rather I find inspiration from those around me and try to imbibe their qualities in me. Also, I keep reading about people who have achieved their goals which give me continuous motivation and keep me positive.
What is your leadership style?
I believe that a leader needs to take along all his colleagues together. In this way, if the company is growing, all those involved will grow. I have always tried to bring in an atmosphere where my colleagues consider it as their own company and whatever they do with it, will impact them.
If you were to do one thing differently, what would that be?
I would not have done anything differently. As the company grew, I was also learning and in fact I am still learning. All the decisions that I have taken till now either good or bad were my learnings by that time. Definitely, as we spend more time on something, we get greater experiences and if I had the same experience at the time of starting CareerGuide.com, I would have taken several decisions in a different way. But I cherish all the decisions that I took since they all paved the way of learning for me and the company. If I had taken only the good decisions, I would have never learned from my failures.
What would you like to achieve in the coming years?
Career-wise, in the next coming years, I want to take CareerGuide.com to each and every region of the country. I have certain plans for the company and want to accomplish them successfully. Personally, I am expecting more opportunities and new explorations.