CAREER MOTIONHow can Web-based technologies improve the career choices and labour market of young people?

From Research to Practice Symposium, Ottawa, March 2013

CareerMotion: the Experiment

A demonstration project conducted from February to September 2010 involving over 500 PSE graduates of British Columbia, aged 20 to 40, who felt they were underemployed or overqualified for the work they were doing

Participants were offered the opportunity to receive access to a custom-designed Career Development Services Web site for five weeks

Participants were randomly assigned to two research groups – program and control – with only the program group receiving access to the Web-based tool

Social Cognitive Theory of Vocational Behaviour

Job search clarity

Match between job and skills and

aspirations

Job search self-efficacy

Contextualized LMI

Career decision-making self-

efficacy

Job search intensity or

intention

Career planning and exploration

Mediating factors:

Attitudes, subjective norms, personal characteristics and circumstances, labour market demand, social networks

Profile of participants

Impact analysis: Lines of evidence

Baseline survey 5-week follow-up survey One-year follow-up survey and focus groups

• Key outcomes of interest

• Socio-demographic characteristics: age, gender, education, household characteristics

• Employment: work schedule, wage, occupation, unemployment duration, expected wage

• Attitudes and subjective norms: over-qualification status, employment constraints, networking , job satisfaction, support from family and friends

Five-week impact on Career decision-making self-efficacy

Job search self-efficacy

Job search clarity

5-Week and One-year Impacts

Life Satisfaction

LMI Ease of Reach ***

Job Search Intention *

Networking Intensity

Career Planning **

Job Search Clarity *

Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy ***

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

5 Week1 Year

Standardized Effect Size

Series10.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

1.20

Sta

nd

ard

ized

eff

ect

size

Meta-analysisof career inter-

ventions

Comparing CareerMotion’s effect sizes to other interventions

Career decision-making self-efficacy Job search self-efficacy

CareerMotion Undergraduate career course

Two-week seminar for UI

applicants

CareerMotion

Participants’ suggestions for improvements

More information on employment opportunities (55%)

More coaching from a trained professional (45%) More specific job search information (44%)

Conclusion

Web-based technologies can be quite efficient in improving people’s confidence and ability to make informed career decisions

Web tools can be quite cost-effective Next step is to evaluate the efficiency of tools thato

enable users to connect with advisors and with other users via online discussion groups and social networking tools