My Work Ready is an online career planning and development tool that helps job seekers evaluate their skills and identify potential careers.
How does it work?
My Work Ready begins with a survey asking participants to provide their location, education history, and their last three jobs. The tool uses this information later on in the process when formulating the participant's career plan to suggest relevant jobs in their region that match their education and work experience.
Once they complete the initial survey, participants answer questions to evaluate their soft skills in four main subject areas: communicating effectively, conveying professionalism, promoting teamwork and collaboration, and thinking critically and solving problems.
The Soft Skills evaluation is followed by a series of self-surveys to help participants identify their skills, interests, and work values. Completing this step unlocks the Career Plan, which will continue to update with recommended careers as the participant progresses through the steps. Additional activities include a financial budgeting tool, academic skills evaluations, a resume builder, job search function, and academic and soft skills training curriculum. Participants can work through WIN’s Soft Skills Courseware and Academic Skills Courseware to build their skills and receive more occupation recommendations. Together, these courseware solutions equip participants with the foundational academic and essential soft skills for career success, making them an invaluable component of the My Work Ready experience. When participants complete activities, they earn Achievement Badges to reward their progress.
Step 1: Work Ready Soft Skills
Work Ready Soft Skills includes four career-contextualized diagnostic quizzes measuring participants’ communication, professionalism, problem-solving, and collaboration skills. Upon completion, participants receive a score gauging mastery of the skills and identifying opportunities for continued skill development and improvement.
Step 2: Career Interests
Participants complete three brief surveys to identify their interests, work values, and other important workplace factors. Surveys include My Interests, My Occupations, and My Work Values. Once this step is complete, the Career Plan unlocks, allowing participants to view their curated occupation recommendations.
Step 3: Financial Reality Check
Financial Reality Check is an interactive budgeting and financial planning tool that allows participants to calculate their monthly expenses and identify careers that match their budget. Participants can choose to begin with a specific career and create a budget based on that salary, or create a budget first, then view a list of careers that can meet their financial needs.
Step 4: Work Ready Academic Skills
Work Ready Academic Skills includes three quizzes to determine participants’ skill levels in math, reading, and data analysis. Participants receive an Achievement Level when they complete the step. Achievement levels range from 1-5 and align to the US Department of Labor’s O*NET Job Zones to help determine readiness to pursue certain careers.
Step 5: Toolkit
The Toolkit contains the following activities and resources:
- Financial Reality Check
- Resume builder
- Cover letter
- Explore Occupations
- Career Advice Forum
- Work Ready Soft Skills Training
- Work Ready Academic Skills Basics
- Work Ready Academic Skills Training
- Career Interests
The culminating result of the participant's activity in My Work Ready is a personalized Career Plan which includes a curated list of recommended occupations that continually updates when participants complete activities. These occupation recommendations are based on the participant's education and work experience, and their interests and skill levels identified by the skills evaluations and self-surveys. My Work Ready is powered by a proprietary WIN algorithm that is aligned with the U.S. Department of Labor O*NET Job Zones to ensure that occupation data is accurate and up to date. The Career Plan also provides a personalized list of suggested next steps based on the participant’s activity results. Participants are encouraged to explore occupations in more detail on the O*NET website, search for job openings in their area, create a LinkedIn profile, and many other helpful activities to guide them through their job search.
My Work Ready includes a robust admin portal for administrators, career counselors, and teachers to monitor participants’ progress in the system. The admin portal includes custom reporting features, a dashboard displaying overall participant progress, and the ability to view individual participant career plans to provide further counseling and guidance.
Technical features include:
- Full accessibility via mobile, tablet, or desktop devices
- Real time tracking of end user progress and administrative reporting tools including user time-on-task, next steps, and Career Plan status
- 24/7 online access
- End user technical assistance via toll-free number and email (M-F / 8 AM – 5 PM ET)
When participants complete activities in My Work Ready, they can earn digital versions of their Achievement Badges to share online. Digital badges can be shared on social media and added to an online resume or portfolio.
