51: Podcaster I Am Thankful For (Carolyn Kiel’s interview with Nikhil Pampati of Jobscopia) Career Search

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Christine:  You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast, with Coach Christine, episode number 51: A Podcaster I am Thankful for: Carolyn Kiel (an Episode of Beyond6Seconds Podcast).  Hi, I am excited to share with you that I have a new membership program, “GPS Execs.”  This will allow you to become an executive producer of my podcast. I am not kidding. I’m so excited about this.  You will become my inner circle. You’ll get bragging rights. You’ll have two Zoom calls available, with me, every month that you are a GPS Exec.  We’ll do periodic book clubs, periodic giveaways, just for my GPS Execs. I’m so excited. If you’re interested, go to my website: youremptynestcoach.com and click on “Executive Producers.” All the information is there.  Thanks! See you there.

00:00:53

This podcast is for you, a mother who years ago walked away from a career to raise your child.  Sure, you’ve been busy volunteering, car pools, maybe part-time work and taking care of everyone.  But your main gig, that has been your child. Now, that they are in their later years of high school, the empty nest looms ahead for you and it is freaking you out.  I’ve been there and I get it. Together, we’ll turn our freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy.

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Hello, my future empty nest friend.  As this is being released the day after Thanksgiving, I want to share with you a podcaster who I am thankful for: Carolyn Kiel – the host of Beyond6Seconds.  Why am I thankful for her? She found me in the #ladypodsquad group and she listened to my podcast despite not being an empty nester. She has since shared my podcast with others, even on another podcast, and provided me with one of my very first podcast reviews.  In podcasting, any feedback is encouraging.  As I’ve said this before, it can be a quiet project.  You put things out in the world and there are no guarantees that you’ll ever hear anything back about it.  So, Carolyn’s continued support has been incredibly helpful for me. Knowing she understands podcasting may be why I treasure her support incredibly.

00:02:16

Carolyn and I both attended the She Podcasts Live conference, last month, where I was lucky enough to hang out with her.  She’s just amazing in person. Her podcast, Beyond6Seconds, is a podcast that goes beyond the six seconds we typically take to make a first impression by featuring the extraordinary stories of everyday people.  So, today, this episode is different. It’s actually one of Carolyn’s episodes.  She and her guest were kind enough to share it with us.  It is one that I think you’ll be interested in, as it is with Nikhil Pampati, a high school senior, and the cofounder and CFO of the national nonprofit Jobscopia, which runs programs that connect students with professionals.  The programs provide the students with real-life insights into potential careers.

00:03:05

Oh, this speaks to my heart.  I’ve always said that I think until we get out of college, we have glamorous views of most careers.  For example, an author, we picture alone in a cabin in the woods, writing things. It’s perfect for an introvert.  But the act of writing a book is a small part of the work. You then have to promote the book, sign the books, do a book tour, et cetera.  You may dislike all of that work. But if you explore it early, you may discover other supporting roles for an author that fit your personality much better.  This is just one example.  Having the opportunity to explore careers ahead of time will allow someone to see if there is a right-fit of that career in their life.  I’m super excited for those who are able to use Jobscopia.

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Nikhil speaks about entrepreneurship and much more in this episode.  Now, I will be back next week with the start of my holiday season episodes where I recap the episodes that you have told me resonate with you.  Thank you for that! Please enjoy this episode of Beyond6Seconds. Share it with your child, too!

00:04:15

Carolyn:  Today on Beyond6Seconds:

Nikhil:  I didn’t realize that you don’t need to know everything from the start.  It’s a lot of experimentation, and it’s a lot just going out there and doing whatever you think is right, because there’s not a correct process that you can follow.  There’s not a rule book, that you can just say, “I’m on step one, how do I get to step two?”  

Carolyn:  Welcome to Beyond6Seconds, a podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression, to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people.  I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. On today’s episode, I’m speaking with Nikhil Pampati. Nikhil is currently a high-school senior at Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies.  In his free time; however, he serves as the co-founder and CFO of the national non-profit Jobscopia, a U.S. based professional development program he started as a high-school junior in 2017. Nikhil, welcome to the podcast.

Nikhil:  Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Carolyn:  I’m really happy to have you here, and I’m so excited to learn more about the start-up that you started while you were in high-school.  So, tell us a little bit more about Jobscopia?

Nikhil:  Yeah, sure.  It was actually based on my entrepreneurial passion that I gained from a summer program, known as the Quarter Zero Catapult Incubator.  So, from there, I met a couple of other fellow entrepreneurs who were really interested in starting something to make a difference in what they felt was right, and what they felt the next generation of students really needed.  We were passionate about trying to instill a new-found sense of motivation and a new found sense of just what they want to do later on in their careers.

We actually got together and we started a non-profit, as you mentioned, known as Jobscopia.  Jobscopia’s mission is really to connect students with professionals and have them be their mentors.  That way, they really know what they want to do in later life. For example, a lot of students may know that they want to be a lawyer later on in their career, but they don’t really know the hours of research that goes into it, the hours of case studies, and often times, being a lawyer is just portrayed as going to court and arguing several cases.  We really wanted to make a difference in other students’ lives to really explain what goes into different careers, and what different careers entail.  

00:06:22

By introducing them to different professionals across the country, whether it be from Fortune 500’s or start-up companies alike, they get a chance to really interact with the professional world, and that’s something that students aren’t really exposed to nowadays.  Back, even in the ‘90s, when you had your typical job-shadow career day coming to your school and having a couple parents and volunteers who talked about their career, I think that’s really the root of what we were trying to bring to students, but in a more flushed-out way.

00:06:51

What we have our students do is either contact us for a mentorship, so they can contact us, say, “Hey, I want to be mentored by this kind of professional.  I would really love to learn more about what they do.” Then, we set them up with about a six-week mentorship, where they can talk to a professional in a company, say like Google, or a start-up in their local area and get to know them, and get to really understand what their day-to-day is like, and how their journey has propelled them to where they are today.  Or they can sign up for a job-shadow program, which is a little bit more formal. This where a group of students, or a single student, if we have a small number of students in the area, and we actually take them to a company and they get to tour the company for a day. For example, the other month, we had a kid who wanted to tour American. American actually set up a cool one-day job shadow with us, and we were able to do something cool with them.  We originally were started in California, which is where the Incubator was located.

Carolyn:  Mm-hm.

00:07:40

Nikhil:  We actually got multiple job shadows there, whether it be with Intel Regional Offices, or Apple Stores, and it was just a really cool experience for these students to see the ins and outs of a company, and to really work with a professional to see what am I actually doing throughout the day if I choose to be in this field.  We always thought that yes, there are YouTube videos that show them what are you going to be experiencing if you go into this profession, but gaining real hands-on experience is something that students need more of nowadays, whether it be in STEM, whether it be in Business Finance, the Humanities or Medicine. They need more hands-on experience to really understand what they want to do later in the career.  As they’re growing up in their educational path, whether it be in high school or college, they can really focus in on what they want to do, and not necessarily gain a solid foundation in one thing, but really try to focus in on what their interests are, so that they are actually propelled and empowered when they go into the workforce.

00:08:32

Carolyn:  Wow. So that sounds like an amazing opportunity for students.  I’m just thinking that I probably know plenty of adults who would love to have that same type of mentoring and experiential learning about careers, because you’re right, I feel like nowadays there’s so much information available, because of the internet and YouTube, and you can read about anything, anywhere, and sort of try to imagine what it would be like to be in different professions, but really, nothing beats that one-to-one mentoring and that hands-on experience.  I think it’s really valuable that you’re able to provide that to students while they’re still in school, while they’re starting to think about what kinds of careers they might be interested in and just give them a real distinct flavor of what it’s really like to do this type of work. That’s awesome. I think it’s also cool that you got to work with an Incubator over the summer and come up with this idea. I’m curious, how did you come up with this specific idea for creating professional development opportunities and sort of career mentoring?  Was that something that you had as an idea from your own experience in your mind, or how did that all come together?

Nikhil:  It’s actually pretty funny, the origin story.  The way the Incubator works is there a set people of founders and there’s a set people of agents, so free agents get matched to founders, and then they go off from there.  My original founder, her name was Kailey [phonetic] she brought an idea of starting like a Wikipedia for jobs kind of thing, so students can go on the platform and just explore what different careers are out there and we started to embark on that venture idea, but we eventually realized that it would probably not be realistic to just get a database of all the jobs, and there are probably a lot that exist already, so we decided to actually head out in the streets of San Mateo, that we literally just went up to a random person, we were like, “Hey, do you have a child?”  And, they were taken aback, they were like, “What? What are we talking about?” And, we were like, “Oh, I’m so sorry for alarming you, but we’re actually just part of a set of high school students in a local Incubator, trying to see what customers need and we just want to get your take on teaching students, if that’s okay with you?” She was like, “Okay, yeah, now I can tell you. But I have two children, why do you ask?” We told her, “Well, we’re actually seeking to see how we can get students more interested in careers early on, and get them focused in life to see what they want to do, so they can pick a specific college, or pick a specific path to try to get that career.” And, she said, “Yeah, well I definitely have two children, they’re really interested in medicine, and right now they’re trying to shadow hospitals and doctors, to try to see what they want to do.”  We asked her, “How difficult is that shadowing process? How are you able to arrange that with the doctor?” She said, “Well, there’s no formal programs that exist with shadowing doctors. There are some programs where you can sign up and try to get a tour of multiple hospitals, but as for cold-calling and cold-emailing doctors and getting a shadowing opportunities, it’s really difficult to come by.” That was a light-bulb moment for us. We were really like, “Oh, that’s a real need that people need.” From there, we went back to the Incubator, actually, we talked to a couple more people. Some were less responsive, some were more responsive. They all gave the general gist that their kids would want something more hands-on.

00:11:03

Carolyn:  Sure.

Nikhil:  From there, we realized that rather than having a database to inform students about all the jobs that exist, why don’t we have a database of professionals who can actually teach these students what their jobs are all about.  We started with the medical profession. We were like, “Oh, my God, there’s so many more opportunities in every other field as well, why just limit ourselves to medical or pharmaceutical companies.” We cold-called like 100 companies that day, just trying to sprint and trying to get as many companies as we can get onboard, and obviously, that was our first day, and we were rookies, and cold-calling.  I think we got about one company in response, actually listening to our phone call. They heard our idea, and they were actually a music studio. The music studio was like, “Oh, this is a great idea.” We set up a kid named Brent [phonetic], and Brent, he actually did a one-day job shadow there, and he really got to explore what happens in a record label company, what happens in a recording studio, and what different jobs there are in that kind of business.  It’s not just about being a producer. It’s not just about being a musician, but there’s a lot of backend work that takes experience, and takes knowledge, and takes a degree and studying, and actually exploring the field. Your two options aren’t just going to be being a musician or being a producer, if you go into the music industry. We had a great success with Brent. We loved his feedback, and we actually used him, our first pitch to investors on Demo Day for the Incubator.  His was a good success story and we like to keep in touch with some of our students, and we know Brent’s doing really good. He’s pursued a couple of internships and he’s trying to go into college for something in the music industry. That’s real good story right there.

00:13:05

After just talking with a couple of these random people on the streets, we expanded from there.  We started contacting bigger companies to see if they would love to get some professionals onboard.  Rather than going from a top-down process, we’d try to get more employees from company, and eventually approaching the company and saying, “Hey, a lot of your employees are interested in what we’re doing, I was wondering if you would want to partner with us on a bigger scale?”  Just contacting employees who go to these Hack-a-thons as mentors, who go to other professional networking conferences for young students, who are really interested in the next generation. We try to go to those conferences, and those Hack-a-thons to get them interested and we get a huge response usually, because these professionals are amazing in the fact that they love working with students.  I think that just goes to show how much opportunity there is for students. It’s just about facilitating the process so that students are empowered to do this by themselves. We’re just trying to act like a launching platform, to actually get them motivated and get them sparked so they know what to do, and one day, hopefully, they’ll be able to do this in the future, with another student.

00:14:07

Carolyn:  Yeah, and that’s really interesting, the whole evolution of how you reached out.  You start literally, with the customer needs out on the street and then cold-calling companies that you think might be interested in participating.  I think it really makes a lot of sense to find not just the, I don’t know if it’s the HR departments, or sort of the official department that might work with a program like this, but to also find those employees who are actively involved already with helping students through Hack-a-thons and other opportunities.  I can totally see how that would help you expand your base of your corporate clients. How do you get your students? How do they sign up? Is it through school? How do you connect with them?

00:14:18

Nikhil:  Yeah, sure.  We started off, as I said, in California, San Mateo, like that area.  People in my team were already from the California area, so they just reached out to their friends, and they said, “Hey, spread the word.  Try to get some students who are interested.” Surprisingly, we had a small amount of response. We thought it would catch fire more quickly, but then we just posted our website online, and we saw that our name had a unique search value.  Whenever people searched up job opportunities for high-school students, or job shadowing opportunities, we actually popped up a lot.  

Carolyn:  Neat.

00:15:20

Nikhil:  Another surprising thing was, we actually had a lot of organic people come in.  We did not do any marketing for them. We had a lot of people come in from different states across the country.  It was interesting to see how many people just found us online, and without even having word-of-mouth marketing. It was really interesting to see that.  For finding people who were more in our area, so we launched in New Jersey about a year ago, and what I’ve been able to do is, I go to a school, as you said, Middlesex County Academy, which has students from multiple districts, so I reached out to each student in my grade, who would be from a separate district in the Middlesex County area, and we had them contact their origin school.  For example, I’m from Monroe Township, so I would contact my Monroe Township High School, and I would contact a student that I knew from the Monroe Township High School, and he would spread the word within his school. We were actually able to branch out that way, like a lot of people referring to one person, and then they would tell another person. You know how word-of-mouth is, it just gets huge.  We got a lot of students just from word-of-mouth, going to these Hack-a-thons, as I said, marketing it there. We saw that once we got the wheel rolling, it kind of just took off by itself. More students getting more and more interested, and it just starts catching fire, and people are like, “Hey, what program did you do, that you actually got to meet this cool new employee, and got to have this mentor?”  They were like, “Oh, I did Jobscopia.” That eventually caught on, and more and more students signed up. I definitely think that it took some work in the beginning, trying to get these students, because they needed to be exposed as to what opportunity there was for them. I think once it started catching fire, I think that’s really when we had to focus more on getting professionals onboard, rather than the students.

00:16:52

Carolyn:  I see. What kind of industries, or fields are represented now?  I know you started with the medical field, and pharmaceutical, but now what other types of industries do you have for the employers?

Nikhil:  Yes, a great question.  Originally, we wanted to start off by going into every single industry, but we realized that as a small start-up, we realized we need to start small, and scale bigger once we started to get more students and more professionals.  Right now, we’re operating in three industries. The music industry, because we started off with Brent, and we wanted to keep that going. Then we are also in the medical, pharmaceutical industry, as well as the tech industry, because we realized that there are a lot of jobs that are being unclaimed in the tech industry each year, and if we got students interested early, they might want to pursue a Computer Science major or a Cyber Security major later on in college.  Those STEM fields we really want to target, and we’ve been branching out in those industries. There’s also a lot of tech start-ups in New York City and New Jersey, and we really want to take advantage of those tech start-ups because a lot of those start-ups are started by young entrepreneurs themselves, and they realize that the next generation is a really big thing. They really want to give back and try to teach students, who they were once in their place, so they realize that if they had this opportunity, they would jump at it, and they would take it themselves.  These young entrepreneurs love giving back and love actually helping these students out. The tech industry is one of the biggest opportunities for us.

00:18:12

Carolyn:  Yeah. I can see that.  Especially the tech industry, it’s changing so rapidly.  I think it’s important for students to get exposed early to what those opportunities are, because it’s just constantly changing.  I can imagine every year there’s just new types of opportunities, particularly in tech. It’s great to have that hands-on experience.

Nikhil:  Right. Yeah.

Carolyn:  Yeah. What is the program actually structured like?  Is it like a one-day job shadow? Do you have a specific program that people have to follow, or is it more sort of making those connections with employers and students?

Nikhil:  Yeah. Like I mentioned, there’s two programs.  The first one, is just more of a structured thing where they get to see a one-day job shadow, like what the company’s about, and what are the ins and outs, and they get a tour.  The other one’s more of like a six-week mentorship process, where they actually get to check in with the mentor, talk about their life experiences, maybe talk about the student’s life experiences, and try to see how they connect, and then, try to see what they can do in their own position, right now.  The students, I mean, like what they can do in the position they are in right now, to try to copy the mentor, or emulate the mentor and try to see if they can get to their position one day. We recognize that for the STEM fields more, we wanted to start early, and we realize that maybe the high-school level was even too late of a starting point, so we wanted to target middle-school students.  That’s what I’ve been trying to do with another program I started. I was known as the Junior Achievement Company Program. What this basically does is, we go into middle schools and high schools, and we try to get them interested in entrepreneurship and how tech can really relate with entrepreneurship. I’ve been working with Junior Achievement for the past two years, I believe, and what we’ve been trying to do is integrate entrepreneurship with a new initiative, we started calling it Next Gen Tech Series, which is basically a series of Hack-a-thons and Crack-the-code events with middle school students and high school students, to try to get them to see the link between entrepreneurship and technology, and try to see how, if you have a firm grasp of technology and STEM, you can actually change a little world in a lot of places.  If you also have a strong foundation in entrepreneurship. Because those two go hand-in-hand. You make the product and you try to get it to market. We’ve really been trying to integrate these two different fields, and try to develop them and market them to the next generation of students, whether it be high-school students, middle-school students, and I’ve been trying to do that through Junior Achievement and Jobscopia.

00:20:22

Carolyn:  Wow. That’s amazing.  So, you’re the co-founder, CFO of Jobscopia.  You’re now working also on the JA Company program, and you’re also still in high school.  I have got to ask how do you balance going to high school on a daily basis, and running a start-up, and all these other programs?

Nikhil:  Yeah, so that’s a great question.  Actually, I focus most of my time on the weekends on doing these other activities.  Obviously, the week can get pretty busy. The weekends are a great time for any entrepreneur who has job, or who has school, or has college.  It’s a great opportunity to take advantage of all that extra free time, and really get some work done.  Obviously, there are emails sent back and forth, and calls going on throughout the week, but I find that those don’t take much of my time.  Those are more of the communication and logistical work, but the real groundwork is laid on those weekends, that everyone loves. You know, school can be hard, obviously, but it’s always good when you have passion for what you’re doing.  I’m obviously trying to get students interested and actually try to make a difference. It’s really surprising what passion can do for you in that aspect.

00:21:28

Carolyn:  Absolutely.  Yes. You wind up devoting a good part of your free time, outside of school, and you could say, if you have the passion for it, it makes it easier.  It definitely gives you the continued motivation to continue growing the businesses.

Nikhil:  Right. Oh, yeah.  Definitely.

Carolyn:  Absolutely.  Yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the biggest challenge you faced in launching, or running Jobscopia, and how do you either address, or kind of work through it?

00:21:50

Nikhil:  I’d definitely say the biggest challenge with starting a non-profit or any start-ups, would just be the initial stages.  Many young entrepreneurs they don’t realize that you don’t need to know everything. When I started this out, I was like, “Oh, I have to do so much research on how to cold-call; how to find professionals; how to like, access corporate leaders, and pierce that corporate veil, just to see like, how can I get into that system.”  But I didn’t realize that you don’t need to know everything from the start. It’s a lot of experimentation. It’s a lot of just going out there and doing whatever you think is right, because there’s not a correct process that you can follow. There’s not a rule book that you can just say, “I’m on step one, how do I get to step two?”  Because a lot of it is just saying, “What can I do next to achieve my goal, and what do I think?” It’s all about what you think. It’s all about what you think, and your team, obviously. What your team thinks is the next best move, because as an entrepreneur, you really don’t have a set path that you can follow. I think that’s the real magic of entrepreneurship.  It’s about doing what you can and doing what you think is right to take the next step. For example, when I went to the Incubator, I had no idea what my end goal was. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to try something new, and I think that’s really fundamentals of any entrepreneur. They just want to try something new, and try to make a difference.  I think that’s the biggest advice anyone can give. Just try to be different, and try to be something that you want to be, and something that you think you can achieve.

00:23:09

I know that that might not be the best advice for someone saying, “What do I do?”  Obviously, saying, “Just do what you can,” is not a big help logistically, but I think that’s the biggest and most honest answer anyone can give.  When I started as my journey in entrepreneur, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know who to contact. I didn’t know can I really send an email to this big company, and will they even respond?  The answer is yes, they might not, but at the same time, if you spark their interest and you actually get them like, “Hey, this is a cool idea,” then they’ll respond no matter what. People will listen to your ideas, as long as you develop it and as long as you believe in it, and are passionate about it, they will listen to your ideas.  That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to communicate all this time. 

00:22:53

In the beginning, I started as a novice entrepreneur, and that’s like anyone, right?  At the end, the Quarter Zero Company actually called me back to mentor other entrepreneurs because of my journey.  I think that really speaks to anyone can do this. It’s not something that I have special, or it’s not something that anyone else has special, it’s just about having the passion to chase what you believe in, and eventually, people will recognize that and try to help you along the way.  In the summer of 2018, I really believed in some new ideas that were being introduced into the next Incubator for Catapult, so they contacted and they said, “If you want, you can be a mentor.” I jumped on the opportunity. I really love working with other entrepreneurs. It’s cool because it’s not just me mentoring them, it’s them mentoring me.  You’re never done learning. You’re always learning from others, and you’re always seeing what new ideas other people can bring. It was a really great opportunity for mentorship, both me mentoring them, and them mentoring me. There were some really cool ideas produced out of the Incubator and I was happy to work with those teams. Some ventures even being featured on Fox Business and more.  It was really cool to see how many ideas people can produce and just new and innovative ideas people are thinking about. I think it’s just about being more creative and it’s just about doing what you believe in, that will get you to your end goal.

00:24:59

Carolyn:  Yeah. That’s amazing, and really great advice.  You know you do your research, and you can listen to advice, but the important part is just going out and doing things.  It is amazing that sometimes people think like, “I don’t know if I can. Can I send an email to a company?” I don’t think that’s unique to your experience.  I’ve heard other people say that. It’s great that you actually did, and you learned from what works, and not everybody responds, and not everybody is onboard right away, but you just need those few couple people to start out, and like you said, it’s really just about trying things, learning from what you’ve tried, and just always being open to being a lifelong learner.  It sounds like you’re really getting some really great experiences in entrepreneurship and running a non-profit, and developing your programs along the way, too.

Nikhil:  Yeah, definitely.  Even if you’re not, let’s say, an entrepreneur, and you don’t want to start something on your own, it’s always great just to learn how that process works, so if you’re really interested, you can just go and join us.  There’s so many start-ups in New York City. There’s so many new innovative ideas being put out there on the market that are so small that people are not taking notice. But if you actually go and do the research, as to like what field your interested in, and what start-ups exist, I’m sure they’ll be happy to work with you.  Just reach out to them. Send them a cold email. They’ll be really happy to work with someone your age, because they’re young themselves, and they want to get more people onboard. As long as you reach out to them and say, “Hey, I’m interested in your new start-up,” and you can work with them to see, in a startup, you have a lot of autonomy.  You have a lot of freedom to take multiple roles. If you’re role is an intern, you might be doing stuff that a CEO or a CFO does. If you reach out to these start-ups and actually contact them and be passionate, and say, “I really want to help,” then they’ll give you a big role and they’ll actually let you understand, and let you get that experience as to how they started and how you can start your own company, if you choose to, one day.  That’s a really great option to do as well.

00:26:49

Carolyn:  Oh, good.   Yeah. Good advice to look for start-ups, because a lot of times you wind up wearing many hats, so it’s a great opportunity to learn different parts of the business.

Nikhil:  Yeah, definitely.

Carolyn:  Absolutely.  Looking forward, what are your goals for Jobscopia?  Is it something that you’re going to continue to grow after you graduate from high school, or continue to evolve?  What does that look like?

Nikhil:  Yeah, definitely.  There are two main goals that I have for Jobscopia.  First off, in college, there are many professional organizations that students can join that actually connect them with professionals because a lot of those professionals are in companies that do recruiting processes right on campuses.  I definitely want to take advantage of those student organizations, and trying to leverage them to actually get more professionals onboard to Jobscopia. My second goal is, we started off as a high-school student run program, and I think we definitely want to continue that way, whereas I move on, I’m obviously going to keep on track on this work and actually still be hands-on with the process and still be involved in the company, but I definitely want new leadership and new young blood and high-school entrepreneurs and high-school seniors and juniors to come on board and actually start leading this Jobscopia as well.  We wanted to continue to be high-school run, because only other high-schoolers can really understand what’s going on with other high-schoolers. Do you know what I mean?  

Carolyn:  Mm-hm.

Nikhil:  It’s more about getting that connection from student-to-student, rather than having a professional manage all these students because only students can understand each other, and I think if we have students running these programs, then it’s going to be best to continue, so I’ll definitely stay onboard, in college, but I would love to have new high-school leaders.

00:28:16

Carolyn:  Fantastic.  Yeah. Absolutely great to continue to bring leaders from high school into this business, because it’s, of course, an opportunity for them to get direct exposure to running a business and being entrepreneurial with a real live case working through Jobscopia.  Absolutely. Wow. So, Nikhil, thank you so much for telling us all about Jobscopia and what inspired you to start it, and what your experiences have been with it so far. How can people get in touch with you, if they want to learn more about Jobscopia?

Nikhil:  Yeah, sure.  You can contact me on Facebook, Nikhil Pampati.  If you search me up, I’ll be there. I respond to everyone because we have students contacting us all the time.  Just feel free to shoot a text on Messenger, or you can just go on the website, Jobscopia.com and shoot us an email there, and we’ll be happy to respond.  We’re really accessible and if you ever have any questions you can always contact us.

Carolyn:  Awesome. Yeah, and I’ll put those links in the show notes of the podcast so people can find them there, too.

Nikhil:  Okay. Awesome.  Thank you so much.

00:29:13

Carolyn:  Cool. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything else that they can help or support you with?

Nikhil:  Yeah. If you’re a student looking to participate in the program, like I said, just reach out to us, and if you’re a student who’s interested in entrepreneurship, my biggest piece of advice is to just go for it.  A year ago I thought I couldn’t do any of this, and here I am today. I’m still learning in my process as well, I haven’t reached the mark I want to reach yet, but it’s just about keep going and keep hustling, and keep on the entrepreneurial grind.  If you ever think that you can’t start another company or can’t start a non-profit, you’re kidding yourself. Anyone can do it. It’s just about having the passion and just going for it.

Carolyn:  Awesome. Thank you so much, Nikhil.  This is great.

Nikhil:  Thank you so much.

Carolyn:  Thanks for listening to Beyond6Seconds.  Please help us spread the word about this podcast, share it with a friend.  Give us a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast player.  You can find all of our episodes on our website: www.beyond6seconds.com.  Until next time!

00:30:18

If you’re still there, before you go, the questions I have for you in this episode are:  did you have the opportunity to explore a career you were interested in? And, what is your favorite part of this episode?  I invite you to take a screen shot of this episode and share it on social media to tell others about it.  Tag me @emptynestcoach so I may thank you. I also invite you to fly on over to our Facebook Group to share your answers to these questions with our amazing flock.  Our name is Green Popsicle Sticks.  Want to know why? Listen to episode number 17.  Or head to my website: YourEmptyNestCoach.com/community for links to join our flock.

I know that the adjustment to not having your kiddos at home full-time isn’t always easy, but it sure can be a ton more fun with a flock of friends.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Psst…my empty nest friend, did you know that I have an online program, “The Empty Nest:  First Steps Towards Success.” I now also, now offer GPS Reset Weekend Retreats,  Unplugged and Charged Up, and that I am available for speaking engagements.  For all the fun details, visit my website, or see this episode’s full show notes.  I am thrilled to travel, and I can’t wait to meet you. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast! it is free and you’ll be notified when I post a new episode every Friday.  And most importantly, please remember that you are amazing