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This article contributes results of a longitudinal field study of SkillsIdentifier, an employment tool originally designed and assessed in the United States (U.S.), to support “underrepresented” job seekers in identifying and articulating their employment skills. To understand whether the tool could support the needs of job seekers outside the U.S., we assessed it among 16 job seekers with limited education and language resources in Switzerland. While many of our results mirrored those of the U.S., we found that the tool was especially beneficial for non-French speaking immigrants who needed support describing their skills outside of their native language. We also found that listing skills like “active listening” without important context was insufficient and risked hiding key skills and meaning behind those skills to employers. Taking these factors into account, we illustrate the design implications of our findings and directions for practitioners who wish to design employment tools in support of job seekers, especially those who have traditionally been excluded from the labor market. We then provide insight into the potential for unintended consequences as a result of focusing solely on skills in a post-COVID labor market and contribute ways to mitigate them. 

Online employment resources are now as important as offline personal and professional networks, which have been pivotal in finding employment. However, it is unclear, which specific online resources are key to employment and how job seekers take advantage of them. Therefore, in an online survey of 768 job seekers, we investigated which online platforms, specific job search phases, behaviors, and job search strategies job seekers used in their job search, and which of these were associated with positive outcomes. We examined whether these results correlated with demographic factors and found differences in online platform use among income, gender, years of education, and race. Our results suggest that higher-income job seekers were more likely to use different strategies and more likely to get callbacks than lower-income job seekers. We raise new questions around demographics and technology and discuss the need for practitioners to design for a wider variety of job seekers. 

Technologies play a key role in finding employment in today's job market. However, the majority of those who are unemployed, e.g., individuals who have limited education or who are racial and ethnic minorities, are not well supported by existing digital employment tools. Therefore, we conducted an 8-month randomized field experiment to evaluate two tools-Review-Me and Interview4-designed to address these job seekers' key employment needs. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine the tools' effects on three factors influencing job seekers' job search intention: job search self-efficacy, subjective norms, and job search attitudes. Our interview data suggested that the tools positively affected all factors, but our survey results were mixed. Interview results suggest that these trends were caused by positive feedback and self-reflection. We contribute ways to integrate these two features into future tools for, and techniques to increase study retention among, underrepresented job seekers.