The arc of career development starts long before the first interview and continues past getting a job. It begins with exploring career options based on interest, pay, and availability and continues with learning how to craft a resume, interview well, and continue to gain skills to advance. It might even entail embarking on a second career down the road.

A new AI tool from the nonprofit CareerVillage, which aims to make career information more accessible and equitable, is meant to accompany job seekers at any of these stages in their careers. The tool, called Coach, is free to use for anyone, from K-12 students to those in middle age and beyond who are looking to upskill or change careers. 

One of Coach’s most popular features so far, according to CareerVillage founder and executive director Jared Chung, is its ability to hold live mock interviews—via chat. Help with resume and cover letter writing is also high in demand. However, Coach can also help users break down some less obvious, but still crucial, barriers to employment, including understanding the list of qualifications on a job posting. 

“There is a critical moment when a job seeker is looking at a job description, and they have to make a decision: is this a job that I’d like to apply for?” Chung says. “They may have a question about whether they meet the qualifications. There’s a lot of research out there that shows this is a very important decision, but not everybody makes it the same way.”

LinkedIn research shows, for example, that women apply to fewer jobs than men. For some, this could be because they feel under-qualified. Coach can help job seekers parse out what the qualifications mean and whether that should stop someone from applying. 

How It Works

Origin Story: Coach differs from applications like ChatGPT, which could also offer help with resume writing and mock interviews, because of its “scaffolding,” as Chung puts it. 

Chung first got the idea for Coach at the beginning of 2023 when he went to a library in San Jose, California, where CareerVillage was running a program. He approached a couple of teenagers and asked if they’d want to talk with a chatbot to get career advice. He observed how they used it and immediately realized they were missing some key knowledge. First, they didn’t know what kinds of questions to ask. And second, they weren’t aware of the limitations of these relatively early versions of generative AI. So Chung gave them prompts to steer them in the right direction. 

“With career development, it’s often about learning how to talk and think about careers and how to do the work yourself,” Chung says. “There’s a lot of formative work that requires teaching.”

The Details: So Coach has built some of these lessons into the tool. The moment a user asks a question, Coach responds with more questions to help focus the conversation: where are you in the career journey (i.e. studying, working, looking for a job)? It also lets users know what kinds of things the tool can help them with (resume work, interview skills, drafting follow-up emails to potential employers) as well as what it can’t do, like ensure that all information it provides is up to date. 

It also offers recommendations, like that a job seeker should focus on career prep on a weekly basis instead of monthly if they have the time. The goal is to not just help users learn job skills, but also learn how to be adaptive in their careers and confident in their ability to navigate change.

Impact Through Partnerships

CareerVillage partnered with over 20 other nonprofits and educational institutions to develop Coach, making sure they reached underserved and underrepresented populations in addition to more well-resourced job seekers. Funding for development came from Elisabeth C. DeLuca Foundation, Atlassian Foundation, Google.org, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Schultz Family Foundation, among others.

Opportunity@Work was one of those partners. The nonprofit works with employers and “STARs”—workers skilled through alternative routes—to help job seekers without college degrees, but with other relevant skills, get hired. Natalia Lara, director of product design at Opportunity@Work, says the scale and immediacy of Coach could be a huge benefit to their clients. 

“When you think about your standard support services, such as how to build a resume or prepare for your job interviews, any career coach or guidance counselor can offer that,” Lara says. “But Coach also provides market insights, including the pay scale for certain roles. Being able to provide that information in real time to STARs can help boost their confidence.”

For busy adult professionals, Chung says Coach can also help with logistics. It doesn’t just recommend what certificate someone might need to get a certain job, but the user can also ask, “How do I get my schedule to work between my job and this course?”

Coach has also partnered with mentorship organizations, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, workforce boards, job-training nonprofits, two school districts in Arizona and California, and the University of Florida College of Nursing to develop more tailored versions of the application. For the school districts and the university, Coach will be able to offer advice about specific programs and courses at the schools.

On the Ground: MassHire Berkshire is one of the workforce boards Coach is working with. Kat Toomey, a youth program specialist at the board, says the young people she works with can use Coach to learn about local programs and work opportunities. In the Berkshires, critical industries include healthcare, human services, hospitality and tourism, and advanced manufacturing. 

In a rural area, the adoption of AI tools could be key for job seekers as well as educators, according to Toomey. Internet access is expanding in the Berkshires, and AI can help fill in when there’s a shortage of experts on a given topic or career path, including brand new careers in AI. Schools are incorporating Coach into career and business-focused classes. And, while the tool can help students figure out what they want to do in the future, and how to get there, it also helps their teachers overcome skepticism about the benefits of AI.

“Students need positive interactions in person, but when that can’t happen, I think online is the next best thing,” Toomey says. “We really see it as another tool in educators’ toolbox to help students with their career development education.”

Resume creation and mock interviews are the most popular features among students in the Berkshires so far, but Toomey says one area that still needs a lot of work is the social and emotional aspect of getting a job. This includes learning soft skills and social skills, as well as respect, which is paramount in the workplace. She’s still trying to figure out whether and how Coach might help with that, too.

A Complement, Not a Replacement: Chung has high hopes for Coach, envisioning a day that it is the No. 1 source of personalized career navigation support. But he acknowledges that AI alone probably isn’t enough. 

CareerVillage was created in 2011, and since then has onboarded more than 150K volunteer mentors to answer job seekers’ questions. CareerVillage offered both Coach and real-life mentors to users in the beta testing, and most of the time, they opted for both. 

“People are not just looking for information,” Chung says. “They’re looking for someone who sees where they’re coming from. They’re looking for a human connection. I think there’s always going to be a lot of demand for getting real people to see me in a career context, to embrace that I have a career identity and a career goal, and to bring their empathy and encouragement.”