Mystory@Shikha Suri: How my college education impacted my career

Mystory@Shikha Suri

Well, I got lucky to attend engineering and MBA college both. I loved every bit of it: studies, assignments, hostel life and even exams. Engineering was done in my hometown but MBA was done far away and was more adventurous. It was a shift from north to south and I learnt how much I could adjust from this experience. Group studies were great fun.

Language was no more a barrier despite a completely new city. The two years just went by in studying, assignments, participating in management fests, exams and trips thereafter with colleagues. My interaction with students from other colleges increased my confidence made every moment memorable. Given a chance, I would go back to reliving those days anytime.

Self-confidence, communication skills and general awareness: these three skills are what my professional college has taught me and are my major achievements apart from the academic aspects of the course. They play a major role not only in entering but in surviving the practical world. Being a human resource professional, all these are not only mandated but key success factors for me.

During my college years, the kind of personality development sessions which were conducted where we were given practical scenarios including those in management fests or internal competitions, have increased my confidence in myself. They taught me leadership skills and how a team can win with proper communication. Even with all this academic learning, when you actually get on to work in the real world, you realize that "if this would have been taught in college, we won't be facing this situation now". There is always scope of improvement as they say.

I feel that there was a definite need to add more sessions on the HR programme, which help you in understanding all parts of the discipline so that you know where you fit and can choose your career wisely. Some training sessions and maybe speakers from organisations that give you an insight of the world outside your college gates could have been desirable. Having these would have made us completely ready for the competitive market.

Almost 99% people say they chose their career as per their expertise and nature, I am part of the remaining 1% who did the opposite and have no regrets!

Being an introvert who was good in Maths, everyone was expecting me to choose finance, but I wanted something which helped me change my nature, the way I deal with people or the way people looked up to me. What better than the HR field?

Why not marketing, some might ask. Recruitment is a kind of marketing of sales jobs. Numbers matter in this field as well. I picked up recruitment in HR for myself. Although I doubted myself in the beginning, today, I have six successful years of working as a recruiter and have loved every bit of it.

It took a lot of hard work as well as smart work to achieve the goals I had in mind. No one can teach you if you don't want to learn so that's what I did. I learnt a lot and applied it wherever required. The best learning come from committing mistakes. I am a human being after all, I made my set of mistakes in every role and then took the same to perfection and even got awarded which was a source of exhilaration.

A result of all this is that I can talk to anyone now, really anyone. My perspective has changed. I think I came the right way. Quoting from someone else: “No matter what happened to you in the past, you are not your past, you are the resources and the capabilities you glean from it and that is the basis of all change."

About the Author:

Shikha Suri is an HR professional who works as a Senior Recruiter in her organisation. An extremely positive person, Shikha loves sketching, listening to music and writing.