7 Questions with Mehar Sindhu Batra

Juhika Mehta
15 Min Read

Post Author

Mehar Sindhu Batra was born in Delhi. She chose to do her qualification as a Chartered Accountant, and after her qualification, she pursued her MBA from Imperial College, London in strategy and brand management. While she was working full-time, she realized how during her formative years, she lacked the right guidance and mentorship, and to ensure that students of today don’t have to face the same challenges, she launched her side hustle  MSB Vision, in 2019, which is an organization that empowers students and young professionals to accelerate their careers!

The entrepreneur works as a career coach now. She is passionate about helping people build and accelerate their careers. Mehar Sindhu Batra mentors professionals through workshops, university talks, interviews, and courses on topics such as career strategy, interview/CV tips, brand building, and effective communication.

Here is a delightful conversation with Mehar Sindhu Batra on her journey as a career coach with Icy Tales.

Q) Please describe your journey and how did you decide to become a career coach?Picture by Mehar Sindhu Batra

Mehar Sindhu Batra: I was born and raised in New Delhi. Like most kids, I did not know what I wanted to do in my life. I just stumbled upon chartered accountancy because of some influence in my life, my dad being the biggest one. During that journey, it was a lot of struggles, I faced failures a couple of times and when I qualified as a CA, I decided to pursue MBA. I moved to London to pursue my MBA.

I shifted fields from finance to strategy and then I started working across London in small medium-large companies. Simultaneously I started my side hustle called MSB Vision. The whole idea behind that was to create awareness about the success and failures that we go through in our careers me sharing my own experiences because when I was growing up, I didn’t have any mentors or anybody to look up to, who could guide me with the decision I was making for a career whether its right one or not. I didn’t even know what a career looked like. I had no idea.

The whole thing started with just helping people. I used to make one video a month on YouTube. It was never planned that I want to become a career coach it just happened. I got just positive feedback from the community, the people who were watching my videos who were resonating with my stories and I think they were liking that was honest with the struggles that I went through.

It started with helping young professionals and mentoring students and at present, we are a community of four hundred and fifty thousand people across different platforms. We have held different workshops and many in-person events.

Q) Tell us something more about MSB’s vision?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcxaaJWMIyr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Mehar Sindhu Batra: MSB Vision is a community where we empower young professionals, and students to take charge of their own careers which includes recognizing their own potential, their interest areas, what are their strengths and building their career, and accelerating their career in that particular field.

At present in MSB Vision it is just me as a career coach, but in the future, there will be multiple coaches who will be helping the students in different parts of their career journey, some of them in specialized fields, for example, engineering, and data science. There will be different coaches who will be guiding the students.

At present we are a community that is fast growing and we have so many exciting things coming up. In the future, we will be hopefully starting our podcasts, launching our merchandise, and doing lots of things that are in pipeline.

What is important for me right now is that we as a community that everybody feels that they are a part of this positive community. For me, it’s just about creating the feeling of somebody coming to my profile and they feel happy and positive about that, okay I am not the only one going through the struggle there are plenty of others.

Q) As a career coach, what advice do you have for people to build on their strengths and improve their weaknesses?

Mehar Sindhu Batra: I talk to a lot of students through one-on-one mentoring. What I have realized is that many of them don’t recognize their strengths many times. Firstly, I would say sit down by yourself and make a list of all the things that you love doing and the things that you are good at naturally. That could be you like talking to people, traveling, your family and your surrounding tells what you are good at.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcFC-fgPf-n/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Make a list of all the things you enjoy and the ones that you can build your career in going forward. If you build your career around strengths, you will always have a feeling that you are making a difference, and you will always feel like you are passionate about what you are waking up on a Monday morning.

Focusing on your strengths will not improve your weakness we are not perfect, and for that getting, feedback is really important. At the end of the internship or the project it’s important to take feedback about how it went, or if is there anything I can improve upon.

Understanding your weakness is really important as well as having a growth mindset and taking charge of your career is okay, I am not perfect in everything. I am here to become a better version of myself. Think about the weakness as feedback for you to improve and become a better professional and make a plan for improvement.

Q) In your opinion how can one maintain a good work-life balance?

Mehar Sindhu Batra: I feel like for Genz work-life balance is very important. Like if you look at our parent’s generations, they just hustle all the time. I think it’s important to have a work-life balance and I completely support work-life balance.

In fact, created a life where I balance everything health, work-family time with my partner, and also working really well with having enough time with my team to make sure they are motivated and you have realized that your life is made up of all the different aspects and it’s not just with works.

You have to make sure what are the different aspects of your life. what happens is we give so much time to our work that we neglect all the other areas of our life and one day your family will need you and you won’t be there. It is about finding the right balance for you.

Secondly, I would say if somebody is working remotely you need to make sure you cut off the time off and you make sure that you spend that time with your loved ones. Have a clear boundary about your working hours and hours when you are having your time.

Also, if you are coming back home from the office make sure you are not picking up your laptop. Find the boundaries and it’s important that you communicate those boundaries to whoever you are working for.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CdGL_MLjslc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Mehar Sindhu Batra: Maintaining a work-life balance and setting boundaries at work.

Q) There is a lack of jobs compared to the average contenders for a job, what is your opinion about this and how can people cut through this massive competition to fulfill their dreams?

Mehar Sindhu Batra It all starts with mindsets, if we think that the competition is so fierce, I would never find the job that’s what you are going to attract from the universe. It is very important to be confident in your abilities. You have to tell yourself that you will find the right job. Being very sure about what you want that’s number 1, have the right mindset.

Second, what is it that I want from my career, and what is it that I am looking for next? It’s not about applying randomly. It is about making good quality applications. The way to stand out is you have to think how do I stand out? because the competition is tough and it is always tough because India has the largest population in the world. You have to think about what the company wants, and what are they looking for.

Do your research and find what are they looking for and go back to your application then review your application and match what they are looking for and what you have done. It’s not about lying it is about just telling your story in a different way. It’s about doing a lot of research about the company, customizing your application, and spending more time creating quality applications.

Q) What do you want to say about people who change their jobs at the peak of their careers, what advice would u want to give them?

Mehar Sindhu Batra: In my opinion, if somebody is in two minds about changing their career, the inner voice is coming for a reason. I think even though you are at the peak of your career if you want to change your career it’s okay.  There is no right time for changing your career, it’s when your instinct tells you to do it. Do your research about where you want to head in your career, and why you want to change your career.

Connect with the people in that future industry that you want to be a part of and see what are the gaps in your cv right now. It is possible to make a career switch but you have to do proper preparation to add the skills that are required, you have to make sure that you have a stable income and some kind of savings with you because you are making a career change.

Remember if you are making a career switch you have to start from scratch. If you are making the career switch it’s going to take time to build but it will go to give you happiness in the long run. it’s a short-term sacrifice for long-term happiness.

Q) Lastly, give some beginners advice to people/students who will be starting a career

Mehar Sindhu Batra: I say this quite often if you are starting your career you have to be like a sponge which means you have to learn as much as possible. These are the years to absorb people. Even if you are in a meeting where you have nothing to contribute, just make notes, observe people how they are communicating with clients, and how they are talking to their bosses just make notes and observe people.  In the end, don’t hesitate to ask questions because if you don’t ask questions your doubts will not be clarified, and your knowledge will never increase.

That’s why I say be like a sponge don’t run after money in your early years rather run after experience, and knowledge, run after new skills. Young people have to be very good with digital skills and make sure they are in touch with all the latest technology such as AI-related tools, and the new technology that is coming in the future. Use technology to your advantage because that is how will become irreplaceable in your organization.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cex1VPlolVA/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Mehar Sindhu Batra shares her experience and knowledge to help young growing minds to move toward productivity and positivity in choosing a field of education and career. The successful entrepreneur has the vision to impact young professionals to recognize and reach their true potential and accelerate their careers.

Mehar Sindhu Batra motivates and inspires people across all age groups to help them in their professional life and she is an expert in career planning, resume building, and interviewing.

Watch the conversation with Mehar Sindhu Batra on our YouTube Channel.

Last Updated on by Sathi

Stay Connected

Share This Article