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One technique I use in career counselling is something I call the Career Detective Lab. Instead of beginning with the conventional question – “What career do you want to pursue?” – I place students in the role of detective and give them a real-world problem to investigate.

The objective is to help students discover careers through curiosity, problem-solving and self-awareness, rather than through a prescribed list of professions.

This technique is particularly useful because many school students know the names of popular careers but have very little understanding of what professionals actually do. A student may say, “I want to be a doctor”, “I want to be an engineer” or “I want to study business” without understanding the skills, working environments, challenges and different pathways associated with these choices. The Career Detective Lab makes the career-exploration process active and experiential.

The Career Detective Lab: what it involves

I begin by presenting students with a realistic scenario. For example: “Bengaluru city is experiencing severe water shortages. You have been asked to find a sustainable solution that is affordable and practical.”

Students are given approximately 20-30 minutes to investigate the problem. They are not told which careers are connected to it. Working individually or in small groups, they identify:

1. What is the actual problem?
2. What information or evidence do they need?
3. Who would be involved in solving it?
4. What different solutions could be considered?
5. What skills would be required?
6. Which professionals might contribute to the solution?

The discussion usually reveals that one problem can connect to a surprisingly large number of careers – in this case, urban planning, environmental science, engineering, economics, public policy, law, data science, journalism, business and design, as well as others.

The crucial counselling moment comes after the activity. I ask students to reflect on which part of the process they enjoyed most. Did they enjoy analysing data? Talking to people? Designing a solution? Understanding human behaviour? Making decisions? Presenting an argument? Finding patterns? This allows the counsellor to move from career labels to underlying interests and strengths.

A problem that interests them

A session I particularly like to conduct with middle- and secondary-school students is called “Bengaluru: the city that needs a solution”.

I begin by telling students: “Imagine you have been appointed as a youth-advisory team for Bengaluru. The city is facing increasing pressure from traffic, water consumption, waste generation and rapid urban growth. Your team has been asked to identify one problem and propose a realistic solution.” 

I deliberately do not tell students which careers they are exploring.

The students first spend five minutes identifying a problem that interests them. They then work in small teams for approximately 15 minutes. Each team must define the problem, identify the people affected, think about evidence they would need and develop a practical solution.

One group may choose water conservation and design a school-based water-monitoring system. Another may focus on traffic and propose changes to school transport. A third may examine waste management and develop an e-waste collection model.

Each team then has two minutes to pitch its solution.

A self-discovery session in disguise

The interesting part begins after the presentations. I ask each student: “Which part of this challenge did you enjoy?”

Students often give very different answers, even when they have worked on the same problem. One student may say, “I liked finding the data.” Another may say, “I liked convincing everyone that our idea would work.” A third may say, “I enjoyed designing the solution.” Another may have enjoyed understanding how the solution would affect different people.

I then connect these preferences to skills and career clusters, rather than immediately assigning a career. The student who enjoyed data analysis might explore data science, economics or research. The student who enjoyed advocacy might explore law, public policy or communications. The student interested in designing solutions might explore engineering, architecture, technology or entrepreneurship.

The session therefore becomes a self-discovery exercise disguised as a problem-solving challenge.

Implementing the Career Detective Lab

The technique requires very few resources. Counsellors can create one challenge every month, drawing on themes such as AI and society, climate change, mental well-being, sustainable cities, misinformation, healthcare access, law, entrepreneurship or education.

The activity can follow a simple structure:

Problem → Investigate → Analyse → Create → Present → Reflect → Explore careers

The counsellor does not need to provide all the answers. Their role is to ask probing questions such as:

• What made you curious?
• Which part did you find frustrating?
• What did you naturally take responsibility for?
• What skills did you use without being asked?
• Would you enjoy doing this kind of work regularly?

The final reflection can become part of the student’s career portfolio, creating a record of emerging interests and skills over time.

The greatest value of this technique is that it helps students understand that careers are not merely job titles – they are ways of applying skills to solve problems. It also makes career counselling inclusive, because students do not need to arrive with a clearly defined ambition.