economic development
Piloting a new service for career transitioners
The economy is going through a turbulent state change, with shifts in both underlying structure and in the specific kinds of jobs that are viable (or not). Career change is a common story, but the resources to support it can be hard to find. Our client, a learning and development consulting company, wanted to bring their knowledge to bear through a new consumer-facing career change service.
Key Details
- We helped a provider in the learning and development space translate deep subject matter expertise into a consumer program
- We developed an 8-week pilot program for 66 real career transitioners in order to test key value proposition hypotheses
- Our client committed to the program, transforming it into a self-serve offering
Our Approach
1
First, we talked to two dozen career transitioners to understand their hopes, fears, needs, and gaps, enabling us to define ‘jobs to be done’ for career transitioners, which helped us evaluate competing services in the market in order to find underserved groups and value propositions.
2
Targeting mid-career transitioners, we developed a functional 8-week pilot program combining self-directed exploration, regular curriculum delivered via email, and a hosted Slack community, and ran it for 66 career transitioners, with a small set opting to pay for enhanced features like expert AMA sessions — putting money on the line was a clear signal of potential value.
3
With the pilot concluded, we translated the outcomes and learning into a series of strategy sessions with our client’s senior leadership and the project’s external advisory committee in order to make decisions about whether to dive deeper into this space.
4
The pilot’s value stuck — six months later, we helped evolve the service model into a self-serve version of the program that could be sold to organizations as a B2B service.
Key Insights
Mid- to late-career transitioners are often underserved by formal, government supports which prioritize recent grads. Our research helped to give shape to this group and their needs, enabling targeted piloting that met them where they were at
Confidence (or its erosion) give shape to a person’s career transition journey. Our pilot aimed to create a safe space where participants could explore their needs and wants around work in private, then shift to a community space of people in a similar position to share reflections and try on new ‘frames’ for their professional selves
Many supports in the market focused on a single kind of ‘transaction’ – mapping a single career pathway, or showing data divorced from actionability. We designed the pilot to be integrative, bringing together data, advice, reflective activity, and community support
Outcome
66%
The conversion rate from initial pre-launch leads to pilot participants, with a weekly participation rate exceeding industry benchmarks, leading our client to commit to the service, transforming the pilot into a self-serve, consumer-facing career transition program delivered via an e-learning platform.