Career centres: your school’s best kept secret.

What is one of the best kept secrets at post-secondary institutions? It is the career centre office! Although it may have different names on other campuses, the primary purpose of a career centre is to provide programs and services on career and employment topics. We can loosely categorize the services and programs available at a career centre in the following three categories: career advising, career information, and employment services.



CAREER ADVISING is coaching or career counselling services designed to help you explore your career options; assess skills, values, and interests; and identify job search strategies and decision making skills. Other programs and services can include job search information, résume and cover letter critiques, mock interviews, networking, workshops, and portfolio development.



Career centres provide CAREER INFORMATION to help you relate your skills, experience, and goals to the workplace. It can also help you explore career choices and the career decision-making process. Many career centres provide career information through self-assessments and career planning resources, labour market information (local to global), graduate or professional schools information, employment directories, and employment advertisements.



A common resource career centres use is “What I can do with a degree/major in…?” This resource contains relevant skill development needs, occupational choices, examples of companies who look for individuals with this degree, and other useful resource links. Having the right information will help you make an informed career decision.



For anyone looking to explore work opportunities and connect with prospective employers, you can take advantage of a career centres’ EMPLOYMENT SERVICES. In most cases, career centre staff develop individual relationships with many local and national employers and graduate/professional schools. Through job advertisements, you learn about employers who have part-time, summer, or post-graduate job openings.



Throughout the school year, career centres also organizes many job/career fairs, information sessions, and meet–greets with employers. These events provide you with direct access to employers and can help you understand what companies may be a right fit for you.



The best advice for anyone looking for resources on how you can link your education to the available jobs is to “Ask questions.” Feel confident that by getting an answer to your career-related questions, you can save time in the job application process, make informed academic course choices, or better understand career interests.  I guarantee there is a dedicated group of career services professionals who are keenly interested in helping you discover your career journey and help you connect with the workforce.for more info, check out avant career

Online grocers such as BigBasket, PepperTap, ZopNow, veggy kart and Localbanya to speed up delivery to outrun kiranas

Online grocers are working on shortening their delivery time to less than two hours by building more delivery points or roping in more partner stores in a bid to attract consumers who prefer quicker kiranas to waiting for delivery of online orders.

Companies such as BigBasket, PepperTap, ZopNow and Localbanya say time and convenience are driving more sales for online groceries, unlike deep discounting that has helped apparel or durables segment. In fact, if consumersdon't get their orders on the same day, the order dropout rate could be as high as 50 per cent, industry experts said.

"In general ecommerce segment, the price differentiation is so high that the consumers are ready to wait as they won't get such an option outside. But in our case, if we don't deliver it when consumers need, they will go to the next kirana store even if there is Rs 20 discount on our site," said Mukesh Singh, cofounder of ZopNow.

Getting daily household, food and personal care products delivered at short notice needs investments and partnerships with a host of players.

ZopNow, which is present in five cities, is in talks with various supermarkets chains for tieups to shorten its delivery time while Amazon India, which started Amazon Kirana services in March, plans to rope in more kiranas to reduce its delivery time to 2-4 hours.

BigBasket, which recently acquired Bengaluru-based hyper local delivery startup Delyver, introduced one- hour delivery service in Gurgaon last week.

"There is a part of the basket that the customer buys on a higher frequency basis. These are smaller order values and these can be delivered efficiently through Express delivery," said Vipul Parekh, chief finance officer at bigbasket.com.

 

Gurgaon-based PepperTap, which offers two hour delivery service, plans to reduce the time to one hour by next year. "We are working on a technology which will help us crunch the whole process, from picking up to delivering the product," said Navneet Singh, CEO at PepperTap that currently operates in seven cities.

Mumbai-based Localbanya, which offers deliveries on the basis of time slots, also introduced two to three-hour delivery service in five cities two months ago. However, it does not plan to crunch the time any further.

"The issue is that most of this is done on a bike and hence, there is a limit to how much a biker can take along and how much orders we can accept for a particular time. Hence, we will not reduce the time any further for now," said Karan Gonsalves, head of marketing at Localbanya, which is present in six cities.

Despite these companies' efforts to reduce delivery time, some experts say replacing local grocers still remains a huge challenge for online grocers. "Over the years, grocers have built a relationship with their customers. All you have to do is call them up and they will deliver the products to you in 30-35 minutes," said Devanghsu Dutta, CEO at Third Eyesight. That kind of service would be hard for any online grocer to match.

Health tech startup Portea Medical acquires Health Mantra

Flipkart has acquired Bengaluru-based mobile payments company PhonePe. Although the company has not yet passed any comment on the development, the news has been confirmed . The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Co-founded by former Flipkart employees Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari in December last year, PhonePe is building a product based on the new unified payments interface (UPI) of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

 

Home healthcare service provider Portea Medical, run by Health Vista India Pvt. Ltd, has acquired medical equipment service provider, Health Mantra India Pvt. Ltd., in a cash and stock deal.

The motive of this acquisition lies in the fact that it could help Portea penetrate deeper into categories such as respiratory care, geriatric care and orthopedics.

Health Mantra, which was launched in 2009 by Ashish Bhutada and Anoop Kodoli, claims to have more than 30 biomedical engineers, physiotherapists and service staff. It currently operates in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra.

Godrej Nature's Basket on expansion mode, adds 3 more stores

Running high on its expansion spree, Gourmet foods retailer Godrej Nature’s Basket has recently announced the launch of 3 more stores to its bouquet. This will make the total number of stores in the country to 36. The new stores have been launched in Gurgaon, Pune and Mumbai.

Commenting on the same, Mohit Khattar, MD, Godrej Nature’s Basket said, “Godrej Nature’s Basket has been a pioneer in the gourmet space for a while now and through our successful Pan- India online operations we have been able to hit our targeted revenue levels.”
“We are now happy to introduce one new store each in Pune, Mumbai and Gurgaon in order to cater the needs of discerning consumers better in select catchments in these cities,” he added.
 

Over the past year, the chain has expanded its existing retail stores in Delhi and Mumbai to larger spaces and has grown exponentially on its eCommerce model after the launch of its PAN India operations in September, 2015.  With its new omni-channel strategy, Nature’s Basket is looking to grab new and emerging markets of the country.

Despite the fact that it delivers only non-perishable products in tier-II and tier-III cities, the average spend on an order is Rs 1,500, claims the company.

Foodpanda join forces with IRCTC to offer meal during rail journey

Online food ordering marketplace Foodpanda has recently announced its partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to give rail passengers food ordering services from its restaurants during the journey. The order food will be delivered via Foodpanda at the train stations.

The pilot to this service will soon start from New Delhi Railway station and will extend to other cities like Mumbai, Bangaluru, Pune and Chennai.

Travelers will have to place orders through Foodpanda app 2 hours prior to the journey. While placing order, the customers will need to give various details including their train details, timing and seat number so FoodPanda delivery boys can deliver the food before train’s arrival time.

The partnership is surely a big positive for FoodPanda as well as train travellers. For FoodPanda, they will get advantage of their platform being opened up to millions of train travelers, which can help them scale their business aggressively. Also, for train travelers, they will now have wide variety of food available on train, literally from every major restaurant in the city. Not to mention benefit of all the discounts that Foodpanda offers on their app.

Over last few months, IRCTC is trying to bring about a change in the way food is served to train passengers. Just a few days back, Indian Railways announced that they will be gradually phasing out Pantry cars from all the trains and will consciously push for eCatering and Takeaways. A senior Railway official had said, “This is a long-time plan of the Indian Railways. The idea is to introduce e-catering at all stations and reduce dependency on private caterers who are in charge of pantry cars.”

Telangana tourism launches luxury yacht rides

Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation (TSTDC) have launched two new catamaran yachts for the Hussain Sagar Lake at Lumbini Park in Hyderabad. TSTDC has introduced the luxury ride package with these two new boats, which will be priced at Rs 100 per person. The boats can accommodate 12-15 members per trip. Additionally, TSTDC has also launched party packages priced at Rs 2,000 per hour at these luxury boats. The party packages will begin post 8:30 PM and can be availed up to 12:00 AM.

The boats will not only provide a luxurious ambience to tourists but also have a lower seating which is closer to the water during the ride. The inauguration was done by Sania Mirza, brand ambassador for Telangana State. The new catamaran boats have been procured from the USA and will be available to ferry the public at the Hussain Sagar Lake. TSTDC owns the largest water fleet in India amongst the state tourism departments, about 95 which comprises small and big boats.

The corporation operates leisure based cruises and water sports at different lakes and rivers of the State, Parasailing activity at Hussain Sagar etc., which are very popular amongst the local crowd as well. Currently the state tourism development corporation already operates one mechanical large boat as a ferry to the Buddha statue. TSTDC also runs 3 cruises 2 AC and 1 Non AC for parties and rides on the lake. TSTDC has also introduced a jolly ride with these cruises – with a carnival style folk and cultural song and dance presentation during the ride. It operates a Jetski and speedboat as well to cater to the tastes of adventure enthusiasts.

Walmart to open more cash-and-carry stores in Andhra Pradesh

US retail giant Walmart Store Inc has recently announced that it will open 15 more cash-and-carry stores in Andhra Pradesh and will set up a centre for sourcing agriculture products from local farmers around the vicinity.

Commenting on the same, Krish Iyer, President & CEO, Walmart India, said, “the company has three stores in the state and it "plans to open another 15".
“Walmart India would engage in areas like working with small farmers, and investing in training,” he added.Aiding employment in Andhra Pradesh, some of countries retail chain giants such as Walmart India, Future Group, Spencers and Arvind have signed MoUs with the government and will invest 1,500 cr for the same.
 

When asked about the ease of doing business in India, he said both at the centre and the state several steps are visible in this direction.
"The efforts are visible. The events on the ground do take time and I believe that in the next 12-18 months, we are going to see some significant results visible on the ground itself," he said.

With more and more international brands are betting big in Indian retail horizon, this step by Walmart surely targets at cementing its pole position in country’s retail space. Walmart India owns and operates around 20 Best Price Modern Wholesale stores in 8 states across India. The first store opened in Amritsar in 2009.

Grofers winds up operations in 9 cities

Hyperlocal grocery startup Grofers has finally decided to shut down its operations in nine cities of the country. The company will no longer serve in the following cities: Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Ludhiana, Mysuru, Bhopal, Rajkot, Nashik and Bhubaneswar.

A couple of months back, the company halted its operations in some parts of Delhi NCR due to some operational hiccups and employees in Noida stopped working following layoff speculations.

Even company’s CTO, Varun Khurana has resigned from his post barely a month after the firm secured a massive $120 million funding.

 

The company saw a massive three-fold jump in its valuation with $115 million in July 2015 compared to that of $33 million in February 2015.

The latest round of funding also saw participation from Apoletto Asia, the personal investment vehicle of DST Global's partners, including Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, and its existing backers. The startup is currently valued at about $400 million (Rs 2657.2 crore).

Many retailers and eRetailer have claimed 2015 as ‘the year of eCommerce’ but despite the huge turnarounds and achievements, the industry has also seen a spate of failures. No doubt, companies like Paytm, Flipkart and Snapdeal ran high on their expansion spree and talent acquisition, there has also been some noteworthy resignations and operational shutdowns.

Here Are The Most Unique Places For An Education

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the global population of internationally mobile students more than doubled from 2.1 million in 2000 to nearly 4.5 million in 2011. Based on this growth trajectory, the total number may sum up to 5 million in 2014. 380,376 African students elected to study abroad in 2010 (representing roughly 10 percent of the world’s international students), the numbers have grown significantly over the past four years, especially with Africa’s middle class growth, hence more families with more money to spend on education abroad.


As another school year starts, with students all over the world, and indeed Africa – world’s second highest mobile students – leave for their respective schools, Lamudi, the international property portal for emerging markets, has examined the most unique places to study and live overseas.

Karachi, Pakistan

Pakistan’s Institute of Business Management (IoBM) is a leading international institute for educating students in innovation, leadership, management and entrepreneurship. Located in Karachi, a tourist attraction for both domestic and international tourists thanks to its stunning beaches, national parks and historic architecture, the IoBM has extensive links with international education institutes, and provides students with access to top facilities and learning resources.

Bayung, Indonesia

Do you want to spend an unforgettable semester in one of the most stunning locations in the world? Udayana University in Bayung, Bali, gives you the opportunity to do just that. The largest and most renowned university in Bali has 11 faculties, and welcomes students from all over the world to study business, economics, law, languages and tourism, to name just a few. You can enjoy the white sandy beaches, whilst developing your education and learning about Indonesia’s fascinating local culture. Read More Places

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