Careers360 steps on the digital pedal; launches new portal for overseas studies

The company looks to reach out to students through aggressive digital initiatives; it has planned dedicated verticals to better serve students' needs.

Education and career-centric magazine Careers360 looks to leverage its content, data and information and reach out to students better on the digital medium. After having launched a career counselling portal targeted at engineering college aspirants (www.engineering.careers360.com) in July, the company has announced the launch of a new portal for student aspirants who wish to study abroad.

The new portal, www.studyabroad.careers360.com, aims to be an unbiased counsellor that helps students to make well-informed decisions and answers students' questions in a simple and comprehensive manner. The country and course-specific content for this portal will come from regulators, embassies, councils and agencies supported by the governments of the respective countries.

On the new portal, Maheshwer Peri, chairman and publisher, Careers360, says, "Career counselling on studies abroad is plagued by agents also doubling up as counsellors, leading to mis-selling and misleading the students. The launch of our study abroad vertical will help student aspirants interact, engage and talk to us, the regulators, the trade authorities of various governments, and universities directly through our portal to take better decisions."

Peri says that features such as chat, discussion forums and counselling sessions on the portal will help students engage and interact with the right people.

Students will also be offered counselling products at nominal fees to give them a deeper insight into the domain before any commitment.

Careers360 is focused on building a strong ecosystem across dedicated verticals. In its engineering portal, it has launched a mock counselling engine and offers features like 'Campus Ambassador Program' wherein students contribute with college reviews and are engaged in chat and counselling sessions. Going forward, there will also be similar verticals launched for B-schools and medical colleges.

A brand owned by Pathfinder Publishing, Careers360 is promoted by Peri, who headed Outlook Publishing for well over a decade. It launched its English magazine in 2009, and in the following year came up with the Hindi version of the magazine.