When viewing a career in the Pathways Explore tool, users are shown a list of similar careers to help raise the profile of careers they might not have thought of. We’ve now updated how that list of similar careers is presented to give greater continuity between the initial career being viewed and those which are similar.
In a recent discussion with a client we were asked about the relationship between a career being viewed in Explore and those being presented as ‘Similar careers’. We explained how we use the underlying attributes associated to a job - skills, abilities, knowledge and interest - and map these to a range of other careers with the same attributes, that the user may find of interest.
The discussion was very positive and the client understood how this career relationship was being constructed, however they still felt more could be done to ensure there was a better continuity between initial job and those classed as similar careers. And we agreed she was right.
Sometimes, careers being presented as ‘Similar careers’ could feel quite removed from the initial career. Whilst the underlying mapping was correctly associating careers, the user could in some cases find this relationship strange.
We’ve now updated the display of ’Similar careers’ to better associate them to the initial career being viewed. We first display careers in the same sector as the one being viewed, then follow this with a section of related careers from ‘Other sectors’.
We’ve also removed the previous limit of 12 careers, opening this out to show many more related careers.
We feel there is great value is showing users careers they may not have thought of before - either because they felt the career was too far removed from their area of interest of it was simply a careers they’d never heard of.
As those additional careers are still aligned to the initial career search, it can become a powerful way to get users enthusiastic about possible career destinations and educate them on future options.
