SkillsIdentifier: A Tool to Promote Career Identity and Self-efficacy Among Underrepresented Job Seekers

Abstract

Today's employment applications enable job seekers to improve their skill sets and build social networks with potential employers and colleagues. However, many of these tools cater to higher-educated and relatively affluent job seekers. Research suggests that underrepresented job seekers face challenges associated with articulating their skill sets and understanding those skills' transferability across jobs and might prefer employment tools to address these types of challenges over others. Because such articulation is vital in today's job market, we designed, developed, and evaluated SkillsIdentifier, a tool to assist job seekers in identifying their current skill set. We evaluated the tool with 20 U.S. job seekers and found that it helped to enhance their career identity and self-efficacy. We contribute the empirical results of our evaluation and design implications for supporting these constructs among underrepresented job seekers.