Shailesh Co-Founded Vah Vah! in Oct 2020 along with his colleagues and friends Eashwar Subbiah & Akash Senapaty. With extensive experience in consumer, gaming and technology industry, they started this venture with a goal to skill people with job-specific vocational training as a pathway towards financial independence. Prior to this he was the Country Head for Support.com (NSDQ: SPRT) & Zynga and ran 1000 Crore global revenue business from the India office.
Gone are the days when the most popular (and sometimes only) career choices in front of students were being engineers, doctors, lawyers, or going for an MBA after graduation. In today’s world, there are a plethora of career choices that can be explored, if you have the right skills in place. But, while there are many unique careers that are opening up, educational institutions may not be equipped to train students beyond the standard professions. The recent India Skills Report (ISR) suggests that only less than half of Indian graduates are employable. The reason being – while industries are evolving at a faster pace, the education system has failed to keep pace. The need of the hour is to train the youth in vocational skills that will make them employable or help them create their own employment opportunities. This is exactly what Vah Vah’s mission is. We want to leverage the online medium to make vocational training accessible for the youth in every nook and corner of the country. From graphic designers to animators to bakers or photographers – vocations once thought of as hobbies are now proving to be successful career choices. Makeup artistry is one such profession that has gained a lot of popularity as a mainstream career amongst the youth.
Makeup Artistry a Lucrative Career Option
According to the National Skill Development Council of India, the beauty sector in India is poised to grow by 30% CAGR and the workforce requirement in the industry will double. Needless to say, there are umpteen opportunities that one can explore as a trained makeup artist. Most people think that after pursuing a course in makeup artistry you can only become a beautician. But the truth is, there are a lot of other options that can be explored. Some of them are –
- Bridal makeup artist
- Celebrity makeup artist
- Cosmetologist
- Working with popular fashion magazines like Vogue, Harper Bazaar, etc.
- Working with production houses as a makeup artist for movies or TVC shoots
- Associating with beauty brands like Lakme, Faces Canada, L’Oréal, and more
- Entrepreneurship – open your small business as a freelance makeup artist or invest in a franchise.
While the scope of work as a makeup professional is vast, the earnings are competitive as well. The salary range of a makeup artist can range from anything above 30K per month depending upon the skills and experience.
Makeup Artistry – A Field Open to Everyone
The best thing about makeup artistry as a field is – it is open to everyone irrespective of their educational background. All you need is passion and dedication. In fact, from engineering to arts, at Vah Vah, our students come from varied educational backgrounds. Not just this, some of our students have even shifted to the profession of a makeup artist from entirely different careers. In fact, we have students from professional backgrounds in HR, IT, banking, and more. Due to their interest in makeup artistry, they took up the course and are now pursuing careers as successful professional makeup artists.
Another advantage of taking up vocational skills like makeup artistry is – it can be done alongside a regular degree. Since the duration of these courses lasts for a few months, it also gives the flexibility to decide whether you want to take it forward as a career or not. At Vah Vah, the Pro MUA course is just 2 months long. Some of our students have actually started their careers as makeup artists while pursuing another full-time degree. That’s the beauty of getting trained in vocational courses like makeup artistry, if you like it you can take it forward as a career, if you don’t you would have learned a new skill and gained a new hobby.
The Beauty of Online Training
It is estimated that India will need over 70 million people in the skilled labor workforce by 2023. With the current training capacity of just 13 million students, there is a huge supply and demand gap. The good news is, the online medium can help ease the load from the education system. In the post-pandemic world, a lot of things have changed. One of the major shifts is that the entire education system is shifting to the online mode. It has allowed breaking the barrier of physical presence and making vocational courses like makeup artistry to be accessible to everyone.
The EdTech landscape started sometime in the early 2000s with the online distribution of educational content. MIT started this with the OpenCourseWare project in 2002. In the next few years, various Learning Management Systems and the MOOC model (Massive Open Online Courses) picked up with the emergence of platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and more. But what the first-gen EdTech platforms lacked was the personal touch, peer interactions, and individual attention of the physical classes. Perhaps one of the reasons why the online medium did not become mainstream until the pandemic when online became an absolute necessity. The limitations of the MOOC model are what we at Vah Vah want to address with our model of live classes and small batches. Live classes make training interactive where students get to interact with teachers and also with peers from across the country. Small batches allow teachers to give personal attention to the students. For a vocational and skill-based training course like makeup artistry, these attributes are extremely important to ensure that students have a holistic learning experience, where they engage and learn from teachers and their peers as well.
At Vah Vah, our aim is to create employment opportunities by bringing the best teachers and offering quality vocational training for skills like makeup artistry – which are often inaccessible or costly. The live online courses not just make training engaging, it also puts the control back in the students’ hands, where they can learn at their own convenience from the comfort of their home.
In today’s world industries are evolving faster than ever and there are many more career choices available for the youth. Vocations that were once deemed as hobbies are now becoming successful career options. Makeup artistry is one such profession. The good thing is with online education, you don’t need to wait for a physical institute to come up near you. You can get access to the best trainers sitting at home. The beauty industry is booming and makeup artistry is becoming a preferred career choice for many. If you are passionate about makeup artistry, there are many institutes available that can help you learn the right skills, and get certified as a professional makeup artist. However, choosing the right makeup school will be the first step and the most important step towards kick-starting a long-term successful career in the beauty industry.