Answered by Arun Kumar Saxena
Career Counselling FAQ: 33 Questions, Answered Straight
The career counselling questions students, parents and working professionals actually ask me before they book. No jargon, no sales pitch, and no answer that talks around the thing you wanted to know.
- 33 questions
- 9 topics
- Fees published openly
- Online career counselling across India
- What does it cost?
- ₹1,499 to ₹4,999 depending on the service. Every price is published below.
- How long does it take?
- One prepared career counselling session of 60–90 minutes, plus a written report you keep.
- Is it online?
- Yes. All career counselling runs on Google Meet or Zoom, anywhere in India. Your city is not a constraint.
- When should it start?
- Class 9 is the useful starting point. Professionals: before you resign, not after.
- About Arun
- How it works
- Fees
- After Class 10 & 12
- For parents
- Psychometric tests
- Professionals
- AI and careers
- Booking
I am Arun Kumar Saxena, a Certified Advanced Career Coach, CBSE Resource Person and founder of MINDSCAN. Over 22 years I have worked with more than 20,000 students and professionals, first in corporate leadership roles at Airtel and Reliance, and since then full-time in career counselling. Everything below is what I would tell you on a call.
Section one
About Arun Kumar Saxena and MINDSCAN
Before the answers, the three questions people ask about who is giving them — and how to judge any career counselling practice, mine included.
Who is Arun Kumar Saxena?
I am a Certified Advanced Career Coach and the founder of MINDSCAN. I am also a CBSE Resource Person and the author of 3 Steps to Knowing Yourself. Before this I spent two decades in senior leadership at Airtel and Reliance Communications, which is where I saw how many capable people end up in the wrong role simply because nobody sat them down and asked the right questions. My practice is fully online, so I work with people anywhere in India rather than one city. More about my background.
What is MINDSCAN?
MINDSCAN is my career counselling practice. It combines structured psychometric assessment with one-to-one counselling, so the recommendation you get is based on measured aptitude, interest and personality rather than a hunch or a trend. Sessions run on Google Meet or Zoom, and every engagement ends with a written report you keep.
What actually makes a career counsellor qualified in India?
There is no single licensing body for career counselling in India, which is why the quality varies so wildly. Three things are worth checking before you pay anyone. First, a recognised coaching or counselling certification, not just years in the industry. Second, real exposure to the world of work — someone who has hired, managed and promoted people understands what a career actually looks like from the inside. Third, whether they hand you a written report you can re-read later, or only talk. Ask for all three. Anyone serious will answer without hesitating.
Section two
Is it worth it, and how does it work?
The most common hesitation about career counselling is not the price. It is whether a stranger can tell you anything you do not already know. These six answers cover how career counselling actually runs.
Is career counselling worth the money, or can I decide on my own?
Plenty of people decide well on their own. Counselling is worth paying for when one of three things is true: you are choosing between options you cannot compare objectively, you have been stuck on the same question for months, or the cost of getting it wrong is high — a four-year degree, a relocation, a career restart in your thirties. The value is not that someone tells you what to do. It is that you stop guessing. If you are simply curious, start with something free like my career personality quiz and see whether it surfaces anything you did not already know.
How does online career counselling actually work?
You book a slot, you get an assessment link, and you complete it before we meet. On the call I have your results in front of me, so we spend the time interpreting them against your marks, your constraints and what you actually enjoy, rather than gathering basic information. Afterwards you get a written report with the shortlist, the reasoning, and the next steps in order. If you are a student, I usually recommend a parent joins for the last fifteen minutes.
Is online as effective as meeting someone in person?
For this kind of work, yes, and often better. The assessment is the same instrument either way. What changes is that you are not limited to whoever happens to practise in your city, and you can take the call from home where you will speak more honestly. I have run online career counselling across India for years, including for families in towns with no career counsellor at all.
How long is a session and how many will I need?
Most people need one properly prepared session, not a course. A career counselling session runs about sixty to ninety minutes. Students choosing a stream or a degree usually resolve it in one sitting plus the report. Professionals planning a switch often take a second session a few weeks later, once they have tested the plan against a few real conversations.
Will I get a written report and an action plan?
Yes. Every engagement ends with a document — your assessment results in plain language, the shortlist of best-fit directions, why each one fits, and a sequenced set of next steps. It matters more than the call itself, because six months later that is what you will actually go back and read.
Is what I share confidential?
Yes. Your assessment results and anything you tell me in session stay between us. For students under eighteen, results are shared with the parent who booked the session, which I say clearly at the start so nobody is surprised.
Section three
Career counselling fees and money
I publish prices rather than quote them on a call. Here is the full list, and then the two questions people actually mean when they ask what career counselling costs in India.
| Service | Who it is for | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| AI Career Clarity Report | A fast, structured read on direction | ₹1,499 |
| Psychometric Test with Counselling | Students choosing a stream or degree | ₹2,999 |
| Resume or LinkedIn | Professionals applying now | ₹1,499 |
| Resume and LinkedIn together | Professionals applying now | ₹2,499 |
| Premium Brand Suite | Senior professionals repositioning | ₹3,699 |
| Women’s Relaunch | Returning to work after a break | ₹2,499 |
| Mock Interview | Anyone with interviews booked | ₹2,999 |
| Career Pivot | Changing function or industry | ₹3,499 |
| Salary Negotiation War Room | Anyone holding or expecting an offer | ₹4,999 |
Every fee above links straight to secure Razorpay checkout. Not sure which one fits? Ask on WhatsApp first — I will tell you before you pay.
How much does career counselling cost in India?
Prices vary enormously — from a few hundred rupees for an automated report with no human involved, to tens of thousands for packages sold alongside admission services. The two questions that matter more than the number: does a qualified person actually read your results and speak to you, and do you walk away with something written. A cheap report nobody interprets is not cheaper than nothing.
Why do career counselling prices vary so much?
Because three different things are sold under one name. The first is an automated test with a generated PDF and no human reading it. The second is counselling — an assessment plus a qualified person interpreting it with you. The third is admission or study-abroad consulting, where the career counselling is a front end for a much larger service and is priced accordingly. Before comparing two quotes, work out which of the three you are being offered.
How do I pay, and what happens if the service does not fit?
Payment is online, and I confirm the scope in writing before anything starts. If what you need is not on the list above, or if you would be better served by something cheaper, I will say so before you pay rather than after. That is the whole reason the prices are published.
Section four
Students: after Class 10 and Class 12
This is where most career counselling in India begins, and where the decisions are least reversible. Seven answers on streams, degrees and timing.
Which stream should I choose after Class 10?
Not the one with the most status, and not the one that keeps the most doors open in theory. Choose on evidence: which subjects you absorb quickly without forcing yourself, what your aptitude profile says about reasoning and numerical ability, and which of the realistic end points actually appeals to you. Science keeps engineering and medicine open but is punishing if you dislike physics and maths. Commerce is far broader than most families assume. Humanities has the widest range of well-paid destinations of the three and the worst reputation, which is a gap worth exploiting rather than avoiding.
How do I choose a career after Class 12?
Work backwards from destinations, not from courses. Pick three or four roles you could see yourself doing at twenty-eight, find out what people in those roles actually studied, and only then choose the degree. Most bad decisions at this stage come from choosing a course first and hoping a career appears at the end of it. I have written this out in detail here.
What are the best careers after 12th Science without NEET or JEE?
A great many, and the list is much longer than most students are told. Data and analytics, design, architecture, biotechnology and life sciences, psychology, actuarial science, aviation, forensic science, agriculture and food technology, and the whole product and technology space that hires on skill rather than entrance rank. The full set is here. If NEET or JEE did not go your way, that is information about one exam, not about your capability.
What are the best careers after 12th Commerce, with and without Maths?
With Maths, the quantitative routes open up: actuarial science, data analytics, economics, quantitative finance, and the CA, CS and CMA professional tracks. Without Maths, CA and CS are still available, as are law through a five-year integrated programme, marketing, human resources, hotel management, entrepreneurship and most of the business-facing corporate roles. Commerce without Maths closes fewer doors than families fear; it mainly closes the heavily quantitative ones.
What are the best careers after 12th Arts or Humanities?
Law, psychology, journalism and media, design, public policy, the civil services, economics, international relations, teaching and academia, social work, and increasingly user research and content strategy inside technology companies. Humanities suffers from a reputation problem in Indian households, not an outcomes problem. The students who do well from it are the ones who chose it deliberately rather than landing in it by default.
Engineering or medicine — how do I decide?
Compare the two on the things that actually differ: the length of training, the age at which you start earning properly, tolerance for a decade of examinations, and whether you want to work with systems or with people in distress. Both are long commitments and neither is a safe default. I have compared them properly here.
At what age or class should career counselling start?
Class 9 is the useful starting point, because the Class 10 stream decision comes fast and families rarely prepare for it. A second round of career counselling before Class 12 is worth it, when the options have narrowed and the stakes are concrete. Earlier than Class 9 tends to produce interesting conversation and no decision.
Check the official sources too. Course lists, approved institutions and exam calendars change every year, and no counsellor should be your only source. The National Career Service portal run by the Ministry of Labour and Employment carries occupation and vacancy information; CBSE publishes the current subject combinations and exam schedules; and UGC lists recognised universities, which is worth checking before anyone pays a fee anywhere.
Section five
Career counselling for parents
Parents book most of the career counselling sessions I run for students, and these are the two things they ask before anything else.
My child has no idea what they want. Is that a problem?
No, and it is the normal state at fifteen. A teenager who confidently names one career is often repeating what they have heard at home. What you want is not certainty, it is a shortlist with reasons attached. Assessment helps here precisely because it gives a young person something external to react to, rather than asking them to produce an answer out of nowhere.
How do I guide my child without pressuring them?
Separate the two things you are doing. One is providing information — what a role pays, what the training costs, what the daily work is like. The other is expressing a preference. Parents tend to blur them, so information arrives sounding like instruction. In practice, the families that go best are the ones where the parent commits to funding a shortlist rather than choosing from it. That is also why I ask parents to join part of the session rather than all of it.
Section six
Psychometric testing
The assessment is the part of career counselling people are most sceptical about, and they are right to be. Here is what it does and does not do.
What is a psychometric career test and what does it measure?
It is a structured assessment of the things that predict fit — reasoning and aptitude, interests, personality traits and working style. It does not tell you your destiny, and any test that claims to is selling something. What it does well is narrow a field of hundreds of options down to a handful worth investigating, and surface strengths you have stopped noticing because they come easily to you.
Are free online career tests any good?
As a starting point, some are genuinely useful. The limitation is not the questions, it is that nobody interprets the output against your marks, your finances, your location and what you are actually willing to do. A result that says “you are investigative and artistic” is true and useless on its own. Use a free test to start the conversation, not to end it. Mine is here.
What is the difference between a psychometric test and an aptitude test?
An aptitude test measures ability — how well you reason with numbers, words, patterns or space. A psychometric assessment is broader: it includes aptitude but also interest and personality. Aptitude tells you what you could become good at. Interest and personality tell you whether you would last. You need both, which is why an aptitude score alone makes a poor basis for a career decision.
Section seven
Working professionals
Career counselling for someone already working is a different job from counselling a student. The constraint is rarely information; it is sequencing, money and nerve.
Is it too late to change careers at 30, 35 or 40?
No, and the question usually hides a different worry — whether you can afford the transition, not whether it is possible. The people who struggle are the ones who resign first and plan afterwards. The ones who succeed map their transferable skills, pick a target role, close the one or two genuine gaps, and move while still employed. Changing career at 40 in India covers how this works in practice.
How do I switch industries without starting from zero?
By moving one variable at a time. Changing industry and function and seniority simultaneously means you compete as a fresher. Change the industry but keep the function, or keep the industry and change the function, and your existing experience still counts. The switch guide sets out the sequence.
Can you help with my resume and LinkedIn profile?
Yes. Resumes are rewritten to get through applicant tracking systems and then read well by a human, which are two different jobs. LinkedIn is treated as a search problem — the profile is built so recruiters searching for your target role actually find you. The ATS guide explains what the screening software is doing.
How do I prepare for interviews and salary negotiation?
Interviews are rehearsal, not talent. A mock interview with honest feedback on what you actually sounded like is worth more than a week of reading. Salary negotiation is preparation rather than nerve — knowing the band, knowing your alternative, and having decided your number before the conversation starts. I run both as separate sessions because they are separate skills.
I am a woman returning to work after a break. Can you help?
Yes, this is a specific service rather than general career counselling, because the problem is specific. The break is rarely the obstacle; the obstacle is usually how it is explained, an outdated view of what the market now pays for, and a confidence gap that does not match actual capability. We work on positioning the gap honestly, updating the target role to what exists today, and rebuilding the evidence in your resume.
Section eight
AI and the future of work
This now comes up in almost every career counselling session I run, from parents more often than from students.
Will AI make my career choice pointless?
No, but it changes what you should optimise for. Choosing a career on the assumption that the job description stays fixed for thirty years was always a bad bet, and AI has simply made that obvious. What holds up is judgement, the ability to work with people, domain depth, and a habit of learning fast. Those are the things worth building deliberately, whatever field you pick.
Which careers are safest from AI?
Safety is the wrong frame — very few roles disappear outright, and most are reshaped instead. The work most exposed is predictable, rules-based and done at a screen without much context. The work least exposed involves physical presence, responsibility for a decision someone must be accountable for, or trust built with another person over time. I have gone through this in detail.
Section nine
Booking and locations
Do you offer career counselling in my city?
Yes. The practice is online, so the city is not a constraint. There are dedicated pages for Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Kota, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Bhopal and Dehradun, and the full list is here.
How do I book a career counselling session?
Message me on WhatsApp at +91 91406 04743 or use the contact page. Tell me who the session is for and what decision you are facing, and I will tell you which service fits and what it costs before you pay anything. If none of them fit, I will say so.
My question is not on this page.
Then send it. This career counselling FAQ grew out of questions people actually asked, and it gets added to. If yours is a common one I will answer it here as well as to you.
Still deciding?
Tell me who the career counselling session is for and what you are choosing between. I will tell you which service fits, what it costs, and whether you need one at all — before you pay anything.
Arun Kumar Saxena
Certified Advanced Career Coach · CBSE Resource Person · Founder, MINDSCAN · Author of 3 Steps to Knowing Yourself. Twenty-two years of career counselling and 20,000+ students and professionals, after two decades in senior leadership at Airtel and Reliance. Full profile.