Gary's Address

Gary's Appeal to WiseNxt prospects

Hi, I'm Gary. I am deeply committed to revolutionizing work-alike practice and enhancing its role in education. For decades, I have been actively supporting this mission through both donations and volunteer work. Today, I'd like to share my personal story to showcase the problems it can solve and illustrate how the concept of using practice as a learning backbone developed and evolved over time.

Reflection One: Education Meets Career

It's common for education and career paths to diverge, and my experience is no different.

In high school, an inspiring teacher and my classmates sparked my passion for physical science. This led me to pursue a graduate degree in mechanical engineering. However, after eight years of education and starting an entry-level job, I realized that this career wasn't the best match for my professional interests.

Motivated by a desire to innovate, I founded a desktop publishing company in the early 1990s, during the industry's infancy. With no formal training programs available due to the field's novelty, we developed in-house apprenticeships, which were crucial to our success.

As information technology advanced, we continued to innovate, designing and implementing our own customer relationship and enterprise resource planning systems.

While I value my time at my first university and appreciate having that credential on my resume, in hindsight, my initial degree had little impact on my professional life.

The earlier the rubber meets the road, the faster vehicle problems are revealed. If I had better identified my career needs before my first university project or the rubber met the road earlier, I would have chosen a different path for my early degree or initial job.

Reflection Two: Practice Shapes Education

Aligning education with career goals and the value of practical experience in shaping one's professional journey is important.

Due to a mismatch between my initial education and my actual career needs, I enrolled in another university in the early 2000s. The second graduate degree, that time in business, proved to be far more effective than the first one.

My practical experience played a significant role in enhancing my student performance. I could apply theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios and was more motivated, seeing a clearer purpose in my education.

This second degree has been instrumental in my career success. It significantly boosted my publishing business, ultimately leading to its successful sale in mid-2000s, and continues to benefit my professional endeavors. Additionally, it has enabled me to teach business part-time, covering nearly every subject I studied during my second degree program.

Reflection Three: Guidance Meets Career

In the mid-2000s, I relocated from Belarus to the United States. I was determined to find my ideal career path in that new to me country. Initially, I faced setbacks due to limited English proficiency and a lack of American work experience. Nevertheless, I had no choice, but to try.

I enrolled in various colleges and universities, focusing primarily on English classes. Despite my efforts, uncertainty about my future career persisted. By the 2010s, I was one class short of completing my Bachelor's degree in the US, but still hadn't found a meaningful job to pursue.

In search of direction, I sought guidance from career counselors, government agencies, private companies, and non-profits. Yet, despite their advice, I struggled to establish a meaningful career path.

I explored assessment tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and John Holland's career choice theory. While these tools offered some insights, they oversimplified my characteristics and failed to provide practical results.

As a recruiter and volunteer career counselor, I later gained deeper insights into the field. I remember working with an administrative assistant who was unhappy in their role. After consulting with a career counselor, they were advised to pursue a career in technical writing, which aligned better with their skills and interests. Despite their best efforts, they spent a year trying to secure a technical writing position without success and ultimately had to return to the workforce as an administrative assistant.

Eventually, I identified three major issues with traditional career guidance resources:

a) Oversimplification: Questionnaires and assessment tools attempt to match personality, interests, skills, and values to specific occupations, overlooking the complexity of job roles and employer cultures. I also found that generalizations of occupation classifications made them misleading and difficult to use.

b) Lack of Industry Insights: Career counselors often prioritize aspirations over real-world industry needs, with their industry knowledge with very few exceptions being outdated and limited. They function more as social workers, ensuring clients leave the office satisfied, rather than as job market insiders.

c) One-Size-Fits-All Approach: Assessment tools fail to account for the evolving nature of interests, skills, values, and personalities, and they don't consider individual credentials and experiences.

In retrospect, my search for a career path in a new environment was a valuable learning experience that I used to design WiseNxt products.

Reflection Four: Inside of Career Prep

After relocating to the United States, I worked various entry-level jobs, including washing cars, cleaning stores, and serving drinks. Recognizing the need to build a meaningful resume, I incorporated a business and appointed myself as its director. This experience enabled me to start teaching business courses at a community college two years later.

This initial part-time teaching position in the late 2000s led to a significant period of my life dedicated to academia. I taught at American colleges and universities in Belarus, China, and Russia.

Without a doctoral degree, I couldn't teach full-time. Nevertheless, I aspired to secure an innovative role in educational administration. Through organizing student and academic exchange programs, I connected with high-ranking university officials, visited hundreds of universities, and reviewed their educational programs.

I would like to share my insights on how the educational system prepares students for careers. My focus won't be on specific counselors, curricula, or teachers, but rather on the systemic challenges in equipping students with the competencies necessary for career success and workforce contribution.

These competencies can be divided into three categories: knowledge and understanding of a specific domain, skills to apply that knowledge, and abilities to perform tasks and responsibilities required by the job.

Educational institutions often operate under limited budgets and scarce resources. This creates a challenge:

a) Knowledge transfer is the least expensive. It’s cheaper to hire a teacher and provide basic teaching materials like a blackboard and chalk than to invest in simulators. For example, a competitive bicyclist needs explanations for how to use a bicycle and strategies to win a competition in a theory.

b) Skill development is more costly, requiring practical tools and environments. Using the same example, the bicyclist should use simulators for practical training.

c) Ability development is the most expensive, needing workplace-like environments, personalized assignments, and mentor feedback. At this level, the bicyclist should actually compete and have a chance to win.

Due to these financial constraints, educational institutions tend to focus heavily on knowledge transfer, minimize skill-building activities, and either eliminate or outsource opportunities for actual professional experience. As educational institutions prioritize knowledge transfer due to its lower cost, the development of practical skills and real-world abilities often suffers.

Reflection Five: Search for Insightful Mentors

In the early 2010s, I unexpectedly secured a position with the US Marine Corps. I say 'unexpectedly' because I had no apparent qualifications for the role at the outset. My previous experience, however, may have contributed to landing this job.

I led the Russian component of a cultural program, given considerable freedom to innovate. The project had substantial resources but minimal oversight and bureaucracy. We extensively utilized technology and various methodologies.

Russian language proficiency was a key objective. Initially, we used standard textbooks and conversational resources. However, when the first cohort took the Defense Language Proficiency Test, they were surprised by its practical nature, being tested on real-world scenarios rather than textbook greetings.

For the second iteration, I collaborated with Professor Soboleva from the Defense Language Institute to develop a new curriculum, which we rapidly implemented and tested.

As a result, my students matched the listening skills of their peers at the Defense Language Institute. I believe continued curriculum development would have led to even better outcomes. While I consider my role successful, the project ended after a year due to budget constraints.

Afterwards, I stood at a crossroads between continuing as a language instructor or transitioning to information technology. Based on past experiences, I sought advice from industry insiders.

On the linguistic side, I consulted a high-ranking recruiter from a top language training provider. This knowledgeable insider said, "There aren't many jobs available, but there are lots of people trying to get them. Most of these people have better degrees and more work experience than you. Let's assume that you did well in your first job. However, it's hard for me to hire you. In my job, I need to play it safe. I don't want to get in trouble if something goes wrong. For instance, someone complains about why I chose you over other candidates."

This insider also admitted that the field generally lacked the innovative roles I was seeking. Later, other sources and experiences confirmed the insider's insights independently.

Basically, I had only one real opportunity. Professor Soboleva offered me to join the Defense Language Institute. Nevertheless, the compensation was low and the expenses high, given the institute's location in an expensive area of California.

On the IT side, finding quality consultants proved more difficult. Some had narrow expertise or conflicting objectives. However, IT was evolving rapidly and offered more diverse roles than language training at least at the time. IT recruiters seemed more prone to burnout than their counterparts in more stable fields.

It's worth noting that finding my linguistic consultant was largely luck. While there's no shortage of advisers offering ideas without accountability, finding an honest, caring industry insider is rare but invaluable.

Reflection Six: Practice as a Hiring Tool

By mid-2010s, I had developed significant credentials in training generally. Then, I wanted to add IT training to my resume specifically.

I created a meetup group and named it "Hands-On Training". I started organizing hands-on training in various aspects of IT.

One day, two hiring managers proposed me to host hands-on training for SharePoint administrators. To the best of my understanding, they needed SharePoint administrators, there were not available administrators at that time, they were willing to train the candidates on the job, but needed to select those who they would be willing to work with.

Some say that real-world project collaboration reveals team compatibility.

My experience in apprenticeship development proved invaluable when I began recruiting for a startup-focused investment group in the mid-2010s. Startups need versatile team members. While verbal interviews could help narrow down candidates, the true determining factor was their actual work.

To hire one person, I targeted 1,000 candidates. Through a funnel effect, this number narrowed down to 100 who started training, 10 who advanced to work, and ultimately, 1 who succeeded.

However, this outcome doesn’t necessarily mean that the sole successful candidate was the best employee. Beyond fitting into the startup's culture, the biggest obstacle was simply finding candidates who were willing to complete the process.

Most adults have demanding family commitments and must prioritize earning a steady income to pay their bills. Engaging in startups, skill development, or vocational exploration often entails significant uncertainty.

It is worth mentioning that the practice-based training that we developed proved surprisingly efficient, taking only a few months compared to my first degree pursuit. However, many adults cannot afford to be out of work for even a couple of months and no longer have that option.

Reflection Seven: Emphasis on Experience

I am 60 years old and over half my life was dedicated to recruitment and training. Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of working with various organizations, observing that employers typically focus on three key areas when evaluating candidates:

• Job Performance: Can the candidate perform the job requirements?
• Cultural Fit: Does the candidate align with the organization's culture and team dynamics?
• Motivation: Is the candidate motivated by the compensation package offered?

When it comes to competencies, experience in the relevant field is the most critical factor. Many job descriptions highlight this, stating "Experience may be substituted for education." Practical experience often trumps formal education in many cases. And, from that point of view, if education costs something, professional experience shall cost more.

If any recruiter argues against the importance of experience, ask about their own educational background. I've yet to meet a recruiter with a degree in Recruiting or Human Resources. If you do find one, ask if their degree alone landed them a recruiter job. I doubt it.

This emphasis on experience contributes to the struggle many recent college graduates face in landing their first job. On the other hand, I know someone with a Bachelor of Arts degree who started a recruiting business, which failed, but they leveraged that experience to secure a recruiter job.

In conclusion, my journey from entry-level jobs to academic roles across multiple countries has provided me with a unique perspective on the educational system's approach to career preparation. The systemic challenges in equipping students with the necessary competencies—knowledge, skills, and abilities—are exacerbated by financial constraints.

To better prepare students for successful careers, there must be a concerted effort to balance these three competencies despite budgetary limitations. By addressing these challenges, we can create a more robust and effective educational system that truly prepares students for the demands of the workforce.

To navigate the complex world of career guidance, I now believe that:

• Vocational discovery should be seen as an ongoing process.
• Practical experience is essential for clarifying career preferences.

From Problems To Solutions

Gary's reflections highlight the inefficiencies of traditional education compared to practical, hands-on training, emphasizing the superior performance and motivation of students with real-world experience and the challenges of balancing such opportunities with financial stability.

To fill this gap, I got involved in various projects, both profit and non-profit, providing hands-on training and career opportunities to both young people and adults. Among the currently postponed projects, I'd like to highlight "WorldOpp", a promising endeavor aimed at empowering entrepreneurs and financing their ventures in underserved regions. Among the completed projects, we've seen greater success with young people. Nevertheless, I clearly see potential for impact among specific categories of adults as well.

Recently, we launched a new initiative, currently under the working title "Educaship," aimed at enhancing formal education through the development of real-world simulations, internships, and apprenticeships. We believe that theory and practice should be integrated simultaneously, not years later. While traditional schools might see hands-on experience as a supplement, we believe it's the key to unlocking learner dreams.

Some might ask, "Wait, you said 'revolutionizing'. What's revolutionary about replicating job situations? Isn't that just more of the same?" We believe that our another initiative, currently under the working title "WiseNxt", is game-changing. Our learners may discover their passions and talents through fun, interactive experiences that will set them up for a lifetime of purpose and happiness.

Our in-house introductory practice offers a range of roles for new students to explore. In our work sandbox, learners can analyze products, build websites, plan events, manage our cloud infrastructure, and lead projects, gaining hands-on experience across various professions to discover their vocations and strengths.

When our WiseNxt graduates are asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?", we want them to better know what their choices are.

And, back to Educaship, when our scholars identify their target specialty, we aim to collaborate with educational institutions to secure internships or apprenticeships. This way, our graduates can enter the job market with not only formal training, but also practical work experience and a range of career opportunities.

This dream is my greatest passion and motivation. It took some time to reach this point. Initially, I started developing it with my daughter in mind, and later, I considered my son's career. They have now grown, but the journey has been worth it. I am so committed to it that I would willingly dedicate my life to making it a reality. You are welcome to benefit from our efforts as a participant, parent, supporter and/or advocate. Will you join us? Are you in?

1. 1. 1. Reflection Three: Teaching Experience and the Superiority of Practical Knowledge

With over half his life dedicated to recruitment and training, and a quarter to teaching at various international colleges, Gary observed that students with practical experience consistently outperform their peers. These students can apply theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios, enhancing their learning and motivation. Gary’s extensive teaching experience supports his belief in the value of practice-based education, demonstrating its effectiveness across diverse educational contexts and student demographics.