As fears grow over AI’s impact on employment, new tools are using the technology to guide workers toward fresh career opportunities.
Image: Cherryandbees/Adobe Stock; vladwel/Adobe Stock
Sometimes, you need to shake things up in your career. Maybe the job isn’t as fulfilling anymore. Maybe changing circumstances are pushing you toward a new path. Either way, figuring out what to do next can be a challenge.
Increasingly, artificial intelligence is helping people explore their next steps—even when they’re unsure themselves. Chatbots like ChatGPT can offer some guidance, provided you know how to phrase your questions. But several companies have developed specialized tools that focus specifically on this issue.
Google is leading the pack with its Career Dreamer. Described as “a playful way to explore career possibilities with AI,” it’s a tool that anyone can use.
To get started with Career Dreamer, you’ll develop a “career identity statement,” which outlines your skills and experiences. After sharing your current job, the AI will ask follow-up questions about what that role involved. You can also add details about your educational background and any careers, industries, or fields that interest you.
Career Dreamer then suggests potential career paths based on your input. (For example, among its alternate career suggestions for me were communications/public relations specialist, communications professor, and market research analyst—along with several jobs in the reporting field.)
Hovering your mouse over each suggested field provides information about the type of degree typically required, the experience you’ll generally need, a description of the job, and—if you click through—the average salary.
Find something that looks intriguing? You can click through to a list of local job opportunities or jump over to the Gemini AI tool to craft a résumé or cover letter.
LinkedIn, meanwhile, offers the Next Role Explorer for users whose companies subscribe to its Learning Hub. That tool showcases potential opportunities within the company, suggests skills employees should develop, and shows how many openings exist in each role. It also displays the percentage of people who have successfully transitioned from the employee’s current role to the new one.
AI, for that service, acts as a career coach, offering recommended courses and career paths. It also helps employees stay on track as they work toward acquiring the skills needed for a new role.
At Salesforce, the company rolled out Career Connect last September—an internal talent marketplace that uses AI to help employees create personalized career paths tailored to their skills and aspirations.
The tool is embedded in Salesforce’s Slack workflow. Employees can view roles they’re currently qualified for, as well as positions where their skills are easily transferable. If a job catches their interest, they can apply directly within Slack.
Early results, Salesforce says, have been extremely positive: Ninety-one percent of the roles that were filled went to participants in the Career Connect pilot program who discovered those opportunities through the tool. During the three-month trial, 28% of participants applied for jobs via the platform.
Given the ongoing fears that AI will take people’s jobs—freelance positions have already seen a 21% drop in demand—it’s somewhat reassuring to see it also being used to help people find them.
