ExploreCareers
Team Lead (Sep 2023 - Apr 2024)
1. Introduction
During my two years with the Tech4Good research lab at UC Santa Cruz, I focused on understanding and addressing the complexities of youth career exploration. Starting with limited design experience, I dedicated myself to growing both as a designer and a leader while contributing to impactful social change. When I joined, the team was just beginning to investigate the challenges youth face in career exploration. Over time, I played a key role in conducting research and using those insights to drive the creation of innovative career exploration resources.
The Overwhelming Nature of Career Exploration
Navigating a career decision can be stressful, whether you're exploring numerous options or seeking detailed information about a specific career path. We spoke to young people about their career journeys, and many of them expressed that they have trouble choosing a career path and finding comprehensive information to help them decide. Even those who have already chosen a path often find it challenging to access relevant resources.
Unfortunately, many tools and resources designed to assist the career exploration process often fall short.
- Online career databases provide useful statistics and data, but lack firsthand perspectives.
- While social media career content, such day-in-the-life videos, offers entertaining firsthand perspectives, it often lacks key information and structured guidance.
- Even traditional career fairs, workshops, and school counseling sessions can feel broad and generic, often failing to resonate with a student's interests and needs.
How Career Exploration Resources Have Failed to Adequately Support Youth
ExploreCareers: A Holistic Approach to Career Exploration
To address these challenges, I created a tool that combines the strengths of firsthand narratives and data-oriented information in a way that is personally relevant to each student. Specifically, ExploreCareers pairs day-in-the-life TikToks with government-provided occupational data and personalized guidance, helping young people gain a comprehensive understanding of their career options. Our prototypes have made it easier for students to discover new careers, access relevant information, and reflect on their goals.
2. What Insights Do Students Value?
In our interviews with students, we discovered that they seek both firsthand narratives and data-oriented information when exploring careers. While each type offers unique insights, combining them provides a fuller understanding of potential career paths.
- Typically provide insight into daily responsibilities, work environment, and personal experiences
- We chose day-in-the-life TikToks as our source due to their accessibility, engagement value, and concise format
Firsthand Narratives
- Typically provide insight into income, education, and skills
- We use standardized information from the government career database called O*NET
Data-oriented Information
"They definitely gave different kinds of information. So I think having both is really helpful because they're kind of so different."
3. Bringing the Insights Together
Unfortunately, students lack resources that combine firsthand perspectives and data-oriented information across various careers. To help them access both types of information, we explored ways to bring them together. Here's an example of how a student might use our platform:
Organizing the Information onto ExploreCareers
I played a key role in determining how to organize the numerous occupations onto ExploreCareers. Throughout multiple iterations, I experimented with different layouts to prioritize simplicity and ease of navigation. To avoid overwhelming students with a large amount of information, we decided the dashboard would only show select recommended occupations, based on the individual student's interests.
- Distinguishing the career sectors: I used a grid layout, as well as different colors and icons for each career sector, to help students differentiate between sectors and easily visualize the occupations within them.
- Playful and colorful design: Aimed at reducing feelings of intimidation often associated with career exploration.
- Simplified presentation of details: When an occupation card is clicked, it expands to present key details from O*NET in a format that is more intuitive and easier to navigate than the O*NET website.
- Corresponding TikToks: We include day-in-the-life videos alongside recommended occupations so that students can easily access firsthand perspectives as well.
4. Information Needs to Be Supplemented with Reflection
Though we've recognized the importance of putting together various types of information, information alone is just that — information. It holds little value without the process of self-reflection to give it personal meaning and relevance.
Self-Reflection is Important For...
Choosing a Career You Love
Reflecting on your passions, values, and interests will aid in discovering the career you want to pursue.
And Navigating the Challenges Along the Way
Understanding your needs and frustrations will help you seek out the appropriate resources for help.
Helping Students Reflect on Their Career Identity Status
In our literature search, we discovered the Meeus-Crocetti Model, which outlines five career identity statuses, each characterized by distinct needs, motivations, and behaviors.
I implemented a questionnaire based on the Meeus-Crocetti Model to help identify each student's identity status. Upon logging into ExploreCareers for the first time, students complete the questionnaire and are prompted to reflect on whether they resonate with their assigned status. This not only allows us to provide relevant guidance, but also helps students gain introspection into their career journeys.
"I like it. I've never really thought about this being like different stages in figuring out what job I want. So, I think this really helps me think through it."
"I feel like it's pretty accurate. I think it's really helpful because they're really detailed. It wasn't just 'oh, I know what I'm gonna go into' and 'I don't know yet.'"
Helping Students Reflect on Career Anxiety
Additionally, we hoped to design distinct sets of reflection activities that are tailored for each career identity status. However, due to time constraints and limited capacity, we decided to prioritize creating activities that are beneficial for students across multiple identity statuses.
I took the lead in creating our career anxiety activity, understanding that career anxiety can impact students at any stage of their career journey. I curated a set of resources that together address various manifestations of career anxiety, but found that they only offered generic advice. To make them more relevant and meaningful, I created reflection questions to prompt students to think about their own experiences and how the advice could apply to their specific situations. About half the students found the activity helpful, while others did not feel like it resonated with them, which we'll have to explore further in our next iteration!
"I think it definitely helped me get it all out. And like kind of reflect on it. And like think more deeply into it and understand my feelings more."
"The imposter syndrome [article] was interesting, but I've never really felt it or had any experiences with it, so it's more interesting to look at it with a third-person perspective on it, like outside on it."
5. What Key Lessons Did I Learn?
My time at Tech4Good has been incredibly enriching, and I'd like to share some of the most significant lessons I've taken away from the experience!
Perfection is Not Always the Answer
As a perfectionist, the thought of an “imperfect design” used to frustrate me. I had spent countless hours trying to make things pixel perfect before learning how to prioritize design tasks and and focus on what truly matters. While I still occasionally struggle with perfectionist tendencies, I've become more aware of when they arise and know how to manage them effectively.
Design is a Continuous Process
While designers are often taught a simplified, linear design process, it is important to remember that in reality, it is not so simple. What works for one project might not work for others. In designing ExploreCareers and BridgeUs, we continuously circled back to research and ideation — it wasn’t a “one and done” deal.
Healthy Team Dynamics Boost Engagement
As a lead, I was responsible for facilitating discussions and keeping the team engaged. This was sometimes challenging, especially during remote work sessions. I found that incorporating bonding activities helped build stronger relationships within the team. Trust among teammates plays a significant role in fostering openness and encouraging members to share their thoughts and be vulnerable.
Remember to Update Design Systems
It can feel easy to ignore an outdated design system, but the design debt quickly racks up. This was especially apparent when we were personalizing the ExploreCareers prototypes to each student. As a result, I've learned that it is important to conduct regular audits of the design system to ensure it is up to date.