Note: This is the third article in a series on career education. Here are links to the first and second articles.

“You don’t need a degree to succeed, but you do need a map,” says Matt Sigelman, President of Burning Glass Institute, a labor market analytics firm that studies the future of work and workers. Most Americans agree, saying they want to find pathways to good jobs and a career, according to the Career Optimism Index 2024.

This nationally representative survey of U.S. workers and employers, sponsored by the University of Phoenix Career Institute, reports that most current workers say they need support setting career goals (51%) and identifying job options that match their skills and interests (53%). It also found perception gaps of roughly 25 percentage points between workers and employers when asked whether five career development supports were available to help them set goals and develop skills. For example, 67% of employers say regular conversations with managers about career paths are available, but only 42% of workers agree.

The best way to meet this current workforce need is with career navigation systems, which help learners and workers create a road map to good jobs. These systems in turn must be built on accurate information on jobs that are genuine pathways to opportunity. Let’s examine the main elements of what makes a robust career navigation system and the ways organizations develop job and career information for an effective system.

What Career Navigation Systems Do

Career navigation combines job education and training, support services, and professional networking so that individuals can develop the capacity—the personal agency—to pursue economic opportunity. It has three components, according to an analysis by the Harvard University Project on Workforce:

1. Career information: acquiring information about one’s knowledge, skills, and goals, including career education and training programs.
2. Career pathways: making informed career plans and charting a path to that career.
3. Career development: keeping informed of changing industry standards and taking steps to continue career progression.

On a practical level, career navigation includes:

• Support services like coaching and mentoring and other ways to build social capital;
• Tools that help individuals assess their progress;
• Programs and courses that provide knowledge and learning opportunities; and
• Structures and organizations like career centers with viable business plans and clear ways to judge success.

These components can be tailored to what an individual needs, depending on whether career navigation is serving a young person entering the labor market, a worker moving to a better job, or someone reentering the workforce after not working.

Other analyses of career navigation programs explain specific elements like the role of career navigators. These advisors guide individuals as they explore learning options and career pathways. They help people make informed choices as they create their career maps.

Another area of growing study is how organizations use technology platforms to collect and aggregate information that assists in the navigation process, This includes how to use artificial intelligence in career mapping and integrate digital learning and employment records into navigation systems.

Good Information On Careers

Accurate employment information is the bedrock of any effective career navigation system. This includes descriptions of the knowledge, skills, and capabilities needed for success in a given field. Without this sound foundation, career navigation systems cannot help individuals develop career maps with a well-defined pathways to good jobs and careers.

That being said, there are different ways to develop employment information. Here are six examples, each of which uses a distinctive concept worth considering. They provide career navigation systems with the beginnings of a toolkit for guiding workers toward opportunity.

Opportunity jobs: The Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland, Atlanta, and Philadelphia examined labor-market differences for those with and without bachelor’s degrees. Their initial analysis was of 121 metro areas employing 103.5 million workers, roughly 70% of U.S. employment. Almost 22% of the jobs they examined were opportunity jobs, filled by workers without bachelor’s degrees that paid at least the national annual median wage adjusted for regional differences. The project has created an Occupational Mobility Explorer Tool with updated information, including 2023 wage data covering more than 500 regions and nearly 600 job titles. This shows how skills for one job can transfer to other, higher-paying jobs in the same geographical area.

Launchpad jobs: Burning Glass Institute and American Student Assistance produced a report that shows how much a first job matters in a young person’s career trajectory. For example, hotel housekeepers and restaurant hosts begin making similar incomes. Two decades later, the former hotel housekeepers earned $37,000 a year on average, while the one-time restaurant hosts typically made more than $80,000 annually. The report identified 73 “launchpad jobs” for those with only a high school diploma: jobs where workers who obtain further education and training earn more than $70,000 a year by 40 years of age. These launchpad jobs include a wide range of occupations such as bank teller, pharmacy aid, restaurant host, telemarketer, computer support specialist, software developer, flight attendant, procurement clerk, product tester, commercial diver, and quarry rock splitter.

Scorecards: The American Opportunity Index—a project of Burning Glass Institute, Harvard Business School, and the Schultz Family Foundation—is a corporate scorecard that measures how well large U.S. firms promote employee economic mobility and career advancement, especially for those without a college degree. Firms are ranked on practices like hiring, promotion, retention, and pay. For example, the top 100 employers in hiring are 180% more likely to hire workers without a college degree, creating greater opportunity for entry-level workers. The report highlights best workplace practices and describes how firms can use their ranking to improve their policies and practices.

Underemployment: Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation analyzed how college graduates with a bachelor’s degree do in the job market over their first decade of employment. On average, 52% of graduates with a terminal bachelor’s degree are underemployed in jobs that do not require a college degree, with 45% of graduates still underemployed after a decade (though this varies by degree field and work experience like college internships). The underemployed pay a financial price. While they typically earn about 25% more than high school graduates, those with a degree who are employed in college-level jobs earn about 88% more than a high school graduate.

College-to-job disconnect: The College-to-Jobs Initiative of Harvard University’s Project on Workforce examines the misalignment between higher education and the U.S. labor market. The initiative includes a first-of-its-kind tool called The College-to-Jobs Map that compares regional college and employment trends, including information on economic mobility and graduation rates. A companion tool called The College-to-Jobs Playbook highlights the strength of the evidence supporting 12 program interventions like career coaching, internships, and apprenticeships that connect college students to quality employment and high earnings.

Education pathways: This analysis by the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce forecasts the share and number of good jobs in 2031 for workers ages 25–64 by 22 occupational groups and three educational pathways—bachelor’s, middle-skills, and high school. The report defines a good job as one that pays a minimum of $43,000 to workers ages 25–44, a minimum of $55,000 to workers ages 45–64, and a median of $82,000 for all good jobs. These are adjusted for each state for cost of living differences. Many of the good jobs the report describes pay well above the minimum earnings threshold with room for earnings growth over time.

Pursuing Opportunity Pluralism

Career navigation systems respond to the needs of Americans who want to create a map that sets personal career goals and education and training pathways to good jobs and careers. Accurate employment information is essential for these programs that map pathways to greater economic and social opportunity.

Putting this information in the hands of American workers fosters opportunity pluralism, an approach that encourages multiple pathways to work, careers, and opportunity. Opportunity pluralism aims to ensure that every individual—regardless of background—has pathways to acquiring the knowledge, networks, and personal agency needed for career success.

This makes the nation’s opportunity structure more pluralistic, allowing individuals to pursue opportunity through many avenues linked to labor-market demands. Career navigation systems are a vital approach to ensuring individuals gain the economic and social benefits of work, flourish in life, and reach their potential