Back to 4th Quarter 2002 Explorer

Product Review: Bigby Havis CareerWay

One of the objectives of the Rocket-Hire Explorer is to help identify and publicize innovative products that use technology to build new paradigms for matching people with jobs. CareerWay, a new career development tool offered by Bigby-Havis, is a perfect example of such a product.

What is CareerWay?
CareerWay is a comprehensive online career exploration and development program that is designed to be used in two ways.

1. First of all, CareerWay is a career development and guidance system for individuals who are planning to enter the workforce for the first time, are at a relatively early stage their careers, or are looking to make a career transition. The CareerWay system provides a variety of tools that help these individuals identify, learn about, and seek out jobs or career paths that are of interest to them. CareerWay also provides tools for helping these individuals to create self-development plans for obtaining the knowledge and experience needed to close skill gaps that may keep them from reaching their career goals.

2. Secondly, CareerWay can be used by organizations as an internal career pathing and employee development tool. It provides workers a way to identify internal jobs that they are interested in and identify the skill gaps that must be filled in order to help them move into these jobs. CareerWay provides a variety of internal and external developmental resources that can be used by employees to help them create plans for obtaining required skills and experience.

Here’s how it works:
There are 3 main areas of functionality provided by the tool: Exploring, Deciding, and Pursuing

Exploration
In the exploration phase users log in and are asked to create a profile by completing 6 self-directed assessments that provide a global view who they are. These assessments measure the following areas: job interests, preferred job activities, and motivators as well as present levels of knowledges, skills, and abilities.

Once a user has created a profile, they can compare their profile to the profile of various jobs and careers. The CareerWay system provides users with detailed information regarding the jobs or careers that are a good match for their profile. Users can select and save jobs that are of interest to them. The system also provides a gap analysis for each job or career in order to help the user understand their profile in relation to the profile required by a particular job or career path. The job profiles provided by the system also have a link to related postings on America’s Job Bank so that users can search for actual jobs that fit a particular category of interest.

Deciding
This set of tools helps users to research a particular job or career in more detail so that they can make decisions about what jobs or careers they want to pursue. The system provides a career fit rating for jobs that were identified in the Exploration phase and allows user to research the details of a particular job and the career outlook associated with that job.

Pursuing
The functions in this area provide users with the tools they need to reach their career goals. CareerWay provides user with a variety of tools to help them prepare themselves for a given job or career and locate and apply for jobs that fit their profile. Users are provided with tools to help them write resumes, link to developmental resources, and develop plans to help them close skills gaps.

My impressions of CareerWay
There is a lot to the CareerWay system. The system is very user friendly in that it allows you to exit and return at anytime without losing stored information.
Furthermore, it does not require users to complete all 6 assessments. Users can choose to complete as many as they like and can always return to complete additional assessments whenever they wish. The user interface is very attractive and the assessments are easy for users to understand. Overall, I found navigating the system an easy and enjoyable experience.

One of the benefits of CareerWay is that it is flexible enough to satisfy many user goals. For instance, it provides a very deep experience for those who want to take advantage of all of the functions it offers, but it can also be useful at a high level to help a person get a very global assessment of themselves or to research one particular job or career. Another aspect of CareerWay’s flexibility is that it allows users to change any aspect of their profile and conduct new searches at anytime. This flexibility really allows it to fulfill its mission as an exploratory tool.

The CareerWay system is based on the O*net database. It uses technology to compare elements of each job or career path found in the O*net with the information from the 6 assessments completed by each individual user. This matching and filtering technology is the core of the system.

I think that a major criticism that many may have of CareerWay is its reliance on the O*net database. Many persons out there feel the O*net is not a worthwhile tool and does not accomplish its stated goal of categorizing the entire world of work into clearly definable elements. While this may be partially true, it is important to remember that there are presently no other tools that do a better job of what the O*net is trying to do. I personally feel that in creating CareerWay, Bigby Havis has taken O*net and given it a new set of teeth. They have helped push it in the direction that should have been taken at the outset of the O*net project. I think that the use of O*net to power tools such as CareerWay provides additional reasons why the O*net database should be continually updated and modified.

I see CareerWay’s reliance on the O*net as a bigger issue in regards to its use as an internal tool. Many organizations have very strict parameters about what a job entails and their definition of a job may not fit with the definition provided by O*net. This may compromise the quality of the matching provided by CareerWay. However, when used as an internal tool, CareerWay does offer organizations the opportunity to load their own job profiles into the system. This may help alleviate this issue.

A tool for helping build the future of online job searching
Beyond its ability to help individuals who are early in their careers or are considering a career transition, I think tools such as this one can offer a serious value add when used by career portals or job boards. It is the addition of tools like CareerWay that can help make using a job board a customer focused experience. Providing job seekers with a way to understand themselves relative to job requirements is a critical part of the job search process. As of yet no one offers free tools that can accomplish this goal in the manner that CareerWay can.

CareerWay also represents technology that can help revolutionize the job search process. Imagine if the results obtained from this tool could be linked directly to job postings. Instead of comparing user profiles to O*net data, they could be compared directly to the requirements of posted jobs. This would offer an easy way for candidates to understand how well they fit the requirements for a specific job before they decide to apply and might go a long way towards helping reduce the volume of unqualified resumes received in response to job postings. Furthermore, recruiters could use this type of system to help them identify candidates that best fit the profile for a given job.

All in all, CareerWay is a unique tool that does a good job of doing what it sets out to do. In my mind, many of its real benefits have yet to be tapped.