Applying AI to help students find a career path they love

When and how did you choose your career? Did you ever doubt whether you’d selected the right path?

“I’ve raised four children and guided each of them through subject selection at school, as well as further education, and job selection. Each time I observed the same challenges: they received minimal career guidance in school and there was no single source of knowledge to help them explore career paths that were unfamiliar to me personally,” explains Peter Cayless, Founder and CEO of Working Eye.

Cayless found that the existing guidance available to students was too broad-brushed and it came too late in the subject selection process. Students did not have a way to explore their options independently and thoroughly early on in their journey. In fact, studies have shown that 96% of graduates switch careers by the age of 24 and half of all graduates follow a career path that does not relate to their degree (source: New College of the Humanities [link resides outside of ibm.com]). In both cases, the main reason given was that they had little idea of what was really involved in the job before they took it. This led Cayless to launch Working Eye (link resides outside of ibm.com), an AI-driven career discovery platform that aims to inspire people by helping them discover themselves and all the possibilities for a career they will love.

Working Eye’s career discovery platform (link resides outside of ibm.com) is designed to be a digital coach that facilitates a student’s career exploration process. The assistant poses discovery questions to the student in natural language and then guides them on a highly unique exploration process that helps them identify a potential career path that is tailored to their specific needs, strengths and priorities. As the assistant guides the student through this dialogue process, it presents various pieces of written and video content which help the student better understand the career that is best suited to them and shows them how to get started on that path. All of this is powered by IBM technology. “IBM watsonx Assistant is the backbone of the chat between the user and the platform, while IBM Watson Discovery is the backbone of finding the right material, collating it for the student,” says Alan Joenn, Chief Operating Officer of Working Eye. The platform’s primary source of data is a government website called the National Career Service Database, as well as the video content created by the Working Eye team.

During its initial pilot of the platform, the Working Eye team tested the digital coach with approximately 1,500 students, parents and teachers. The platform received a 100% approval rating in school panels and 48% parental uptake. “We like to refer to Working Eye as a hand to hold throughout your working life. It is a beautiful example of how AI can work for good. AI isn’t necessarily going to take your job. It has the potential to help you get the job you want,” adds Cayless.