Digital Skills Job Portal

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The Problem

By 2024, it is predicted that there will be 1.4 million tech jobs in the United States. With this massive influx of new jobs in tech, there is an ever increasing demand for entry-level tech positions. Currently, there is little consistency in terminology between companies in terms of what is truly considered entry-level. Terms like Junior Developer, Fullstack Developer, Web Developer, Software Engineer I, etc abound. With all of the available job listings and the perceived difficulty of parsing through them all, it became apparent to us that a centralized directory for truly entry-level positions is needed. To address this, we have built the Job Portal.

What is the Job Portal?

The Job Portal is a job-searching platform aimed at high school and college students that allows them to explore tech jobs, specifically ones that are entry-level and can be achieved without years and years of experience. Students first search for job roles that interest them the most, such as a Web Developer or Data Scientist. They search, and find only entry level jobs for the job roles they searched for. Each job shows all the details of the job, as well as which skills are required or recommended by the employer. These serve as a strong indicator of what skills employers would prefer new hirees to have.

With this information, students can then seek out resources for learning those skills that they may not have been previously aware of. These resources may be links to external websites, or courses that are entered on the Tech Resource Directory by learning providers. If students see a job that is appealing to them, they may opt to apply now or bookmark it to save for later. In addition to jobs, skills will be able to be bookmarked as an easy way to keep track of what skills they absolutely need to learn to get a job in a certain field.

How does it work?

Using data science and machine learning, our team has developed a program that searches the web to find available tech job listings in Seattle, classifies them, and stores only the entry-level ones in our database automatically. Companies will also able to create their own account and add positions specialized towards our students. As we continue to grow and gain industry recognition, we hope that these tailored job postings will become more and more prevalent to the benefit of both employers and people looking for jobs.

The Job Portal was developed during our 2019 UW Bothell Internship program, where the project was developed by a team of student intern developers over the course of 3 months.

https://digitalskillsforall.azurewebsites.net/courses

The Tech Resource Directory offered by Digital Skills For All will help learners to acquire essential training to establish a tech career. It is a regional digital skill training resources directory that features classes, workshops, camps, events, as well as apprenticeships and internships. It is a cross-institutional collaboration of individuals from higher education, government, nonprofit, and industry that are working with the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) on a project to create a resource directory of available technology skills and Educational opportunities in Washington state. The audience for this tool are people who want to build skills and find appropriate training opportunities in tech, as well as providers who want to refer or recruit students. Our goal is to facilitate connections between training programs and learners through a website which features a myriad of technical education opportunities.