Workforce Atlas

ProLiteracy

Workforce Atlas is an online career pathways platform with workplace skills and interest assessments, occupational recommendations, career profiles, and job search and workplace success resources.

What This Includes

Skills addressed: Communication, Organizing & Planning, Research, Critical & Creative Thinking, Leadership, Entrepreneurial Mindset

Learner resources

Literacy, numeracy, career skills and interest assessments
Occupational recommendations with job descriptions for users who complete the assessments
Career guides and industry infographics about popular careers, such as health care, construction, and manufacturing
Job search tools, such as a resume template and job interviewing preparation
Workplace skills resources, such as writing tips, entrepreneur basics, Northstar Digital Literacy links, and selected video lessons from the Soft Skills to Pay the Bills series
Job search guide for people with a criminal record
Search feature for finding adult education programs by area
Online account to track job interests and access resources

Instructor resources

Implementation Guide with the online platform offers an overview of the platform with implementation ideas and best practices

Key Takeaways

Adult education instructors, workforce development advisors, and career coaches can use the assessment tools and resources on the platform to guide clients through their career search process.
Each occupation recommendation describes how the top personal and workplace success skills from the user’s assessment relate to this occupation.
The assessments, job information, and resource descriptions are written in plain English, making it accessible for those with intermediate reading and English language skills.
Some of the occupation recommendations may be unrealistic for some users, so goal setting and educational planning support would be helpful.
All job information is pulled from the Occupational Information Network Database (O*NET).
The adult education program search feature uses the National Literacy Directory.

Background

ProLiteracy and Pearson teamed up in 2017 to develop Workforce Atlas. It was piloted for five months with four organizations. An outside evaluation team from Results for Development (R4D) collected and analyzed data from the pilot. Workforce Atlas uses open-source data from the Occupational Information Network Database (O*NET) and the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The site connects users to literacy programs in their area using the National Literacy Directory. The University of Pennsylvania, National Centers for Families Learning, and Dollar General Literacy Foundation assisted in creating some of the resources available on the website.

Tags: Adaptability & Flexibility, Communication, Critical & Creative Thinking, Digital Literacy, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership & Initiative, Navigating & Using Information, Respecting Differences, Self-Management, Teamwork & Collaboration, Advising & Coaching Tool, Assessment Tool, Download & Print, Online, Free (Registration Required), Adult Education, English Language Learners, Older Youth, Workforce Development