Career Navigation: Understanding the Journeys of Learners and Workers

Read our latest Career Navigation report, Navigating Opportunity: Career Information and Mobility in Low-Wage Employment.

Background

In 2023, the Project on Workforce conducted a literature and landscape review of career navigation research and practice to identify strengths and gaps in the field. We published a white paper identifying five “drivers” of career navigation success: information, skills, social capital, support, and societal structures. This study dives deeper into those drivers to understand career navigation for workers and learners in practice, with a focus on how people access and use career information to make decisions.

Project Overview

We are conducting a mixed-methods, two-year study that leverages surveys and interviews of low-wage workers and community college students to understand how they navigate their career journeys, including how they access information and leverage social capital. Our findings will inform actionable recommendations for career navigation service providers, employers, educators, and policymakers to improve how they support learners and workers along upward trajectories.

Project Team

• Primary Investigator: Joseph Fuller

• Director: Kerry McKittrick

• Project Manager: Amanda Holloway

• Research Team: Rony Ramirez, Ali Epstein