Career Coach online program explores career, education options

March 13, 2018

University Relations

A new, web-based tool can help Alaskans explore career and higher education opportunities. Career Coach users can browse current Alaska job postings, learn about workforce training and educational opportunities and access current Alaska labor market and wage data. This University of Alaska-sponsored program was developed in cooperation with Emsi.

Career Coach is designed to be used by individuals at varying career stages, from high school and college students to professionals looking to begin a new career. For example, transitioning military service members can use their military occupation code to match their current job with civilian occupations. Users can design a job search based on wages, their current education level, find out what education or training is necessary for various career fields, or take an online assessment to explore careers based on their personality and strengths.

“There isn’t a faster or more comprehensive way in Alaska to search for jobs and easily find out what training is necessary for high-demand careers,” said Fred Villa, associate vice president of workforce programs.

In addition to the personalized career tools, Career Coach uses web-scraping technology to pull current Alaska and national labor market data from over 100 sources, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, allowing students to size up the potential job market based on a given degree program.

"This is a great way to learn about different careers when you're not sure what you want to do," Villa said.

For more information email fvilla@alaska.edu.