Connecting career pivoters to skills and networks

Project Overview

According to The Australian Bureau of Statistics Job Mobility Survey (2024), in Australia, 1.1 million people changed jobs in the year ending February 2024. This demonstrates a strong trend of career changes and increasingly so for the Gen Z workforce. I worked in a team of five to investigate a solution to the barrier of gaining experience or aspirational skills that career-changers face.

The Problem

When changing careers goes well, it can boost individuals' quality of life. However, individuals that consider changing careers are plagued with doubts due to the real risks to their network, sense of identity, career and financial situation.

The Process

In a team of five, we conducted interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including current career changers, students who discontinued their studies and entered the workforce and careers planners.

From our interviews we heard user pain points such as..

"[there are] social risks associated with changing careers, such as building, then changing your identity."

"my friends they’re all working and I'm kind of…stepping out of life — so it's kind of like lagging behind them."

“How might we create low-stakes opportunities for career changers to explore alternate industries and learn new skills, whilst building social networks?”

We identified four key findings from our interviews to develop our 'How might we…"

1. The expectation of some sort of real-world experience

   Career changers were disenfranchised by their experience offering voluntary services to start-ups but being pushed back due to a lack of real-world experience.

   "[Even with] start-ups you are expected to bring some real world project experience"

2. The advantage of social capital

   There was a recurring pattern of hiring managers and senior professionals highlighting that they were willing to look past lack of experience or skill, for a candidate with the right attitude and character.

   "We screen [candidates] based on their technical expertise and experience...and then the second thing is also the character."

3. Identifying a professional niche

   Career changers were often lost on what they wanted to pursue in their next career but knew they wanted to try something different.

   "you need to just try out different things so […] you have a breadth, large area of knowledge about different things."

4. Alternative ways seeing networking

   Careers professionals emphasised that networking could often be misinterpreted as 'stiff and awkward' gatherings of people in suits and ties, but that actually it was more about connecting with the right people and finding opportunities.

   "[it's more] that you're connected with people, and it doesn't have to be sort of through awkward networking things."

How might we reduce barriers to gaining skills, experience and new networks for career changers?

I proposed an app that fosters a social and collaborative online space to try out new skills in a low-stakes environment with people that hold similar interests or goals by working on projects with new people.

Low-fidelity wireframes that I designed

High-fidelity design tested with users

I refined the design after implementing user feedback

The Outcome

Achieved 90% positive validation rate, with participants expressing personal adoption intent— indicating strong product-market fit.

Users found the interface intuitive and easy to navigate, with 100% completing tasks without assistance.