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 1: Education Meets Career

It's normal for what you study in school and what you end up doing for work to be different. That's what happened to me.

In high school, I really liked science because of a great teacher and my classmates. This made me want to study mechanical engineering in college. But after finishing school and starting my first job, I realized this wasn't really what I wanted to do.

I wanted to create new things, so I started a company that made documents look good on computers. This was in the early 1990s when not many people were doing this yet. Since it was so new, we had to teach our employees ourselves.

As computers got better, we kept coming up with new ideas. We even made our own systems to manage customer information and run our business.

I'm glad I went to college and got my degree, but looking back, it didn't help much with my actual job.

The sooner you try something, the quicker you learn if it's right for you. If I had figured out what I really wanted to do before college or tried out different jobs earlier, I might have chosen a different subject to study or a different first job.

Reflection 2: 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 3: 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 4: 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 5: Insightful Mentors Matter

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 6: Practice as a Career Tool

By the mid-2010s, I had established substantial credentials in technology training. Seeking to expand my expertise, I decided to focus on IT training specifically.

I founded a meetup group called "Hands-On Training," organizing free IT workshops across various disciplines. To facilitate these sessions, I recruited volunteers.

It's often said that real-world project collaboration reveals team compatibility. This principle was put into practice when two hiring managers approached me to host hands-on training for SharePoint administrators. From what I gathered, they were facing a shortage of qualified administrators and were willing to train candidates on the job, but needed to identify those they'd be comfortable working with.

This experience, coupled with my background in apprenticeship development in Belarus, proved invaluable when I began recruiting, onboarding, and upskilling for a startup-focused investment group. Startups require versatile team members, and while interviews can help shortlist candidates, their actual performance is the true determining factor.

My recruitment strategy targeted 1,000 initial candidates. Through a funnel process, this pool narrowed to 100 who began training, 10 who progressed to work trials, and ultimately one successful hire.

However, this outcome doesn't necessarily indicate that the sole successful candidate was inherently the best. Beyond cultural fit, the most significant challenge was finding candidates willing to complete the entire process.

Most adults have pressing family responsibilities and must prioritize steady income to meet their financial obligations. Engaging with startups, skill development, or career exploration often involves considerable uncertainty.

Notably, our practice-based training proved remarkably efficient, taking only a few months compared to traditional degree programs. However, many adults can't afford even a brief period without income, limiting their options for such opportunities.

An additional insight struck me: while I needed a narrow scope of candidates and had to reach out to many, the outcome wasn't simply finding "gold nuggets" among pieces of sand. Each candidate had potential value, if not for my startup clients, but definitely for other opportunities.

Practical experience is essential for clarifying career preferences. However, I faced limitations in delivering comprehensive assessment results, and candidates weren't actively seeking my career assessments. This revealed a gap between the wealth of talent discovered and the ability to effectively channel it to fitting opportunities.

Reflection 7: Experience Rocks

I am 60 years old, and over half my life has been dedicated to selecting employment candidates and putting them to work. I have performed as both a dedicated and contingency recruiter. Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of serving various organizations. I've observed 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. Logically, those who have succeeded in a job before have higher chances of succeeding in it again. Many job descriptions highlight this, stating "Experience may be substituted for education." Practical experience often trumps formal education in many cases. From that point of view, if education costs something, professional experience should cost more.

This emphasis on experience contributes to the struggle many recent college graduates face in landing their first job. I'm not saying that formal training is obsolete, but something is missing in the pure education package.

Back to my first college learning in the United States, one professor really helped me integrate into the American society. However, when I needed a professional recommendation to start applying for jobs, this professor said that they couldn't do anything like that because we hadn't worked together. They gave me a letter that I was an excellent student, which could be somewhat helpful if I were 18. However, such a letter sounded disastrous for a 40+ years old man.

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.

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 specifically in Recruiting or even in Human Resources generally. If you do find one, ask if their degree alone landed them a recruiter job. And, if they say "Yes", they probably recruit students for a college.

Reflection 8: Career as a Journey

Career exploration, competency building, and professional growth are lifelong endeavors. To illustrate this, let's consider a hypothetical scenario.

Imagine I had been employed as a mechanical engineer by an innovative company immediately after graduating from university. In the mid-1980s, mechanical engineers primarily worked with paper and pencil. As technology evolved, I would have needed to learn computer-aided engineering software in the 1990s and, later, potentially start using 3D printers for rapid prototyping. Looking ahead, it's likely that these tools will be superseded. Mechanical engineers of tomorrow will likely use AI-aided software systems and prototyping robots.

From my perspective, artificial intelligence and AI-driven robotics are poised to dramatically change the workplace as we know it. While lifelong career preparation has long been a valuable concept, the emergence of AI is transforming it from a beneficial practice into an absolute necessity.

Reflection 9: Need in Career Support

Indeed, career exploration, competency building, and professional growth are lifelong endeavors. However, to be truly effective, they require support and guidance from others.

First, the modern job market is highly complex and dynamic. Rapidly evolving industries and technologies demand ongoing learning and adaptation. As new career paths emerge and others become obsolete, continuous exploration becomes necessary.

Second, individual perspective is inherently limited. Personal biases and blind spots can hinder accurate self-assessment. External viewpoints provide valuable insights into one's strengths and weaknesses, offering a more comprehensive understanding of one's professional potential.

Third, industry-based mentorship and networking are crucial for career development. These relationships provide insider information, opportunities for skill development, and accountability. However, building and maintaining these professional connections requires significant time and effort.

Attempting to navigate one's career independently is akin to simultaneously being a job market analyst, career counselor, and relationship manager. Each of these roles demands years of specialized experience and knowledge. Therefore, seeking guidance and support from others is not just beneficial, but often essential for effective career development.

From Problems to Solutions

By the late 2010s, I reached a pivotal conclusion: education, industry-insightful mentorship, and practical experience should be integrated and delivered simultaneously. This realization led me to contribute to services I wished had been available during my own career development.

I've since been involved in various projects, both for-profit and non-profit, providing hands-on training and career opportunities to young people and adults. Among these initiatives:

1. WorldOpp (currently postponed): A venture aimed at empowering entrepreneurs and financing their projects in underserved regions.
2. Educaship (in progress): An initiative to enhance formal education through real-world simulations, internships, and apprenticeships. We believe theory and practice should be integrated from the start, not years apart. While traditional schools might view hands-on experience as supplementary, we see it as key to unlocking learners' potential.
3. WiseNxt (our latest innovation): This program offers interactive experiences for learners to discover their passions and talents, setting them up for purposeful careers. In our work sandbox, participants can analyze products, build websites, plan events, manage cloud infrastructure, and lead projects across various professions.

Our completed projects have shown varied results across age groups. We've seen greater success with young people, which has been encouraging. However, we've also had notable victories with adults, revealing potential for impact among specific categories of mature learners as well. These insights continue to shape our approach as we undertake new initiatives.

Join the WiseNxt Revolution

Our approach is revolutionary because it goes beyond simply replicating job situations. We're creating a comprehensive ecosystem where:

• Learners explore diverse roles to discover their vocations and strengths.
• When asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?", our graduates have a clearer understanding of their options.
• We collaborate with educational institutions to secure internships or apprenticeships in students' chosen specialties.
• Graduates enter the job market with formal training, practical work experience, and a range of career opportunities.

This vision began as a personal mission, initially developed with my children's futures in mind. Though they've grown, the journey has proven invaluable. I'm deeply committed to making this dream a reality and would gladly dedicate my life to its success.

We invite you to be part of this transformation – as a participant, parent, supporter, or advocate. Will you join us in revolutionizing education and career development?