Upward with Transfr — How We Built the Future of VR Career Exploration: CE 2.0

Summary

Transfer introduced a new career exploration experience to help users explore roles in various industries without specialized equipment. Based on customer feedback, simulations are now shorter, expanded across more career clusters, showcase diversity, and have improved accessibility. The experience aims to give students and job seekers exposure to more careers, help them determine interests and fit, and allow instructors to guide next steps. Data and analytics will also help map classroom-to-career pathways. Overall, the goal is to showcase opportunities, address skill gaps and open jobs, and ultimately get more people into well-paying, in-demand careers.

Takeaways

• 😊 Transfer's career exploration product started in 2020 to help expose people to careers and build talent pipelines.
• 👩‍🏫 Customers wanted shorter simulations to quickly explore more careers in one sitting.
• 🔬 The new career exploration includes major updates like close captioning for accessibility.
• 📊 It provides student tracking data to help instructors guide them to careers.
• 🚧 There are new engaging career simulations like line workers and semiconductor manufacturing.
• 😃 The updated career exploration is more fun, story-driven and focused on problem solving.
• 🔎 Research ensured the new simulations match high-demand careers like healthcare.
• ⚙️ An internal no-code platform empowered designers to build simulations faster.
• 🔢 Data and analytics will play a big role in recommending next steps for students.
• 👐 The goal is to actively guide people from early exposure to getting a relevant job.

Q & A

What was the initial purpose of Transfer's career exploration product?

The initial purpose was to allow people to explore a variety of careers quickly without needing to purchase Transfer's full catalog of training simulations. It enabled career exposure for students and recruiting pipeline development for employers.

What are some key differences between the original and new career exploration products?

Key differences include: shorter 3-5 minute simulations rather than 15-20 minutes, more career clusters covered (aiming for all 16 eventually), greater diversity among the coaches/instructors, improved accessibility features like closed captioning, and more robust tracking of student data.

What new accessibility features are being added in the career exploration 2.0 product?

Major new accessibility features include closed captioning to assist those who are hard of hearing or English language learners. There is also improved support for tracking individual student accessibility needs.

What are some examples of new career simulations being developed?

New simulations cover careers like broadband technicians, line workers, health sciences roles (surgical technologist, EMT, nurse), and semiconductor manufacturing technicians.

Why is career exposure especially important right now?

There are over 10 million open jobs in the U.S. but only 6 million unemployed people, so workers have lots of choices. But many people, especially youths, have limited exposure to what jobs are actually available and what those careers entail on a day-to-day basis.

How will the new dashboard for instructors improve their ability to guide students?

The dashboard provides detailed tracking of which students explored which careers, what they were most and least interested in. This helps instructors efficiently prioritize counseling and connecting students with next steps like training programs, professionals in the field, and open jobs.

How might Transfer leverage data and analytics more in the future?

Potential future uses include identifying gaps to build more career simulations, making personalized recommendations to students for next explorations or training programs, and even recommending open jobs.

What was the motivation for building the Transfer SDK platform?

The Transfer SDK is a no-code/low-code platform that empowers designers to build simulations without needing a developer. It aims to eventually enable a global community of designers and subject matter experts to create their own simulations.

What were some challenges faced in developing the new career simulations?

Challenges included building on the new SDK platform for the first time, finding the right balance of learning and engaging storytelling, and innovating production processes to be more efficient and collaborative.

How might the career exploration product continue to evolve in the future?

It will likely continue expanding the number of career clusters and occupations covered. The simulations and dashboard analytics may become more personalized and actionable in guiding each student's next steps.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Introducing the New Career Exploration Experience

The paragraph introduces the hosts Bryant, Shelley, and Jack who will be discussing Transfer's improved career exploration product version 2.0. It allows users to explore roles in various industries through engaging, accessible VR experiences without needing specialized equipment. They will cover why Transfer built this, what they hope to achieve, and why skilled trades are important.

05:02

📏 Shorter, More Focused Simulations

The paragraph discusses key differences in the new career exploration version based on customer feedback. The simulations are now shorter, around 3-5 minutes rather than 15-20, allowing users to try more careers in a session. There is also more focus on providing a taste of the career rather than mastery of skills.

10:03

🚀 Exciting New Features and Accessibility

The paragraph covers new features debuting to improve accessibility and experience. This includes close captioning, more granular student data and tracking, a dashboard for instructors to visualize data, and a redesigned app menu to support different use cases like classrooms or career fairs.

15:04

🗺️ Expanding to More Career Clusters

The paragraph discusses how the new version expands the number of career clusters represented from 4 to aiming for all 16 clusters. It teases some of the new simulations in development, including jobs related to infrastructure, healthcare, and manufacturing. There was also extensive market research to identify high-demand jobs.

20:06

💡 Using Data to Illuminate Career Pathways

The final paragraph talks about how data and analytics will play an increasing role in illuminating classroom to career pathways in the short and long term. Immediately it will help instructors save time and better advise students. But longer-term, Transfer can leverage data to guide what content they build next and even provide personalized recommendations to help students progress.

Keywords

💡career exploration

Career exploration refers to activities and experiences that allow people to learn about different jobs and career paths. The video discusses transfer's career exploration product, which uses VR simulations to give users a virtual experience of what it's like to work in various trades and technical jobs. This helps people explore careers and determine if they are a good fit before investing time and money into training and education.

💡virtual training

Virtual training refers to learning and skills development activities conducted in simulated or digital environments, rather than through in-person, hands-on experiences. Transfer uses VR and simulations to provide virtual training experiences that develop technical and trade skills without requiring expensive equipment or facilities.

💡career clusters

Career clusters are groups of related occupations and industries. Transfer's career exploration product covers 16 major career clusters so users can explore a wide variety of technical and trade jobs before choosing a career path to pursue.

💡career pathways

Career pathways refer to the sequence of education, training, and job experiences that lead from school to a career. A key goal of transfer's product is to help users map out promising career pathways after exploring options through VR simulations.

💡job market

The job market refers to employment opportunities and hiring demands within different industries and occupations. The video explains how transfer's career simulations respond to current job market needs and growing areas like semiconductor manufacturing.

💡data analytics

Data analytics refers to techniques for analyzing user data to draw insights and trends. The video discusses how transfer will use data from its career exploration product to improve the platform, build new simulations, and provide personalized recommendations to help users pursue career pathways.

💡accessibility

Accessibility refers to designing products and services to be inclusive and usable for people with disabilities. The video highlights new accessibility features in transfer's product like closed captions to make career exploration more equitable and empowering.

💡employers

Employers are companies and organizations that hire workers within different industries and trades. A major goal of transfer's product is to build a talent pipeline by exposing more potential workers to in-demand technical jobs and trades.

💡job seekers

Job seekers are people exploring opportunities and looking to start a new career. Transfer's career simulations help give job seekers a risk-free way to experience and evaluate different trades and technical roles.

💡skills gap

The skills gap refers to the mismatch between the talents and abilities of the available workforce and the actual skills employers need to fill open jobs. Transfer's career exploration aims to provide exposure, training, and pathways to help close the skills gap in trades and technical fields.

Highlights

The current career exploration experience started in summer 2020 based on feedback to expose people to careers and build interest.

Key changes in the new version: shorter 3-5 minute simulations, more career clusters, increased diversity of coaches, and improved accessibility.

Customers want shorter simulations to quickly get a taste of careers rather than master skills over 15-20 minutes.

New accessibility features include close captioning based on customer feedback, especially for those hard of hearing or English language learners.

Providing student- and classroom-level tracking data helps instructors guide students towards career pathways.

The new application menu system supports use cases like career fairs to process many students quickly.

Shorter simulations allow exploring more careers in the same time to determine interests and dislikes.

Instructors want to filter out careers students don't like to avoid wasting time and resources.

10 million open US jobs but only 6 million unemployed shows ample opportunities if awareness gaps can be addressed.

Simulations provide exposure to careers that may have safety concerns for young students.

Dashboard access to interest data saves instructors time instead of tracking manually.

Longer-term, analytics could recommend related occupations, training programs, and open jobs.

The no-code SDK platform allows non-developers like designers to build simulations.

New production processes emphasize collaboration between designers and subject matter experts early on.

Careers were selected based on market demand, like semiconductor manufacturing jobs.

Transcripts

it was actually way cooler than I

expected it to

[Music]

be wow this is very

intuitive that was

cool oh I did

it

unbelievable that was really fun and

that was a lot easier than I thought it

would be welcome to upward with transfer

we tackle our evolving Workforce and our

Educators governments and industries are

changing to keep up we're dedicated to

building effective pathways for workers

and job Seekers to get the skills they

need to get into well-paying careers in

high growth industries our part in that

is designing and distributing Hands-On

simulations that Learners can use to

explore new career options and develop

core skills before entering an in-person

vocational training

program transfer simulations augment

human Educators broadening their range

of classroom possibilities without

expensive facilities build outs or

specialized

equipment I'm Jack sizl editorial

director at transfer and your host for

this episode I'm joined by by transfers

own Bryant Harrison director of product

management and Shelley who executive

producer for a talk about our improved

career exploration 2.0 product let's

jump

in transfer's new career exploration

experience gives users a chance to

explore roles within a variety of

Industries without specialized equipment

or site visits they are engaging

accessible experiences for anyone who's

interested in building a better future

for themselves and the world today we're

going to dig into why we built this

career exploration experience what we

hope to achieve with it and really why

the skill trades of the future of this

country and the world I'm joined by

Bryant Harrison and Shelley who and

we're gonna have them introduce

themselves really quickly and we're gon

to jump into some questions Briant when

we start with you hi I'm Brian Harrison

and I'm the director of product

management for transfer and I've been

with transfer since the summer of

2021 and my name is Shelley who I'm the

executive producer of uh VR Studios at

transfer I I oversee the production of

simulations I've been working at

transfer since the spring of

2021 awesome okay so let's start with a

bit of background about career

exploration overall when did transfer

come out with our current CE offering

and then you know how do we build it and

how people responded to it and why C

expiration product actually predates

both myself and Chell so it started

actually back in summer of 2020 and

really it was an evolution of just sort

of understanding the use cases of how

people are using our virtual training

facility product so some of the feedback

that we got was around you know I'm an

employer this is great that you guys can

train people uh in this with the skills

that we need however we're actually

having trouble just finding enough

people to train right so how do we build

out that pipeline how do we get people

interested in it and we also heard from

school systems K through2 CT programs

Etc you know we want to we have people

who are younger they don't actually know

what they want to do yet and it would be

this would be a great way to expose

people to all these different careers

out there that are needed but at the

same time we don't want to necessarily

buy your entire catalog because we want

variety right yeah so what we need to

figure out is a way to expose people to

arrange very quickly and so what we did

for that was we kind of did a hack in a

way we Cherry Picked 23 of our virtual

training facility

simulations and that would represent a

bunch of different career paths and made

some very minor user experience changes

and packaged them up into a separate

application and so we launched that as

career expiration sort of as an MVP if

you will and it was just wildly

successful we got a lot of the same

feedback that we got from virtual

training facility you know people love

it they find it extremely engaging

exciting yeah you know exposes people to

careers and just like really gives you a

sense of what a career is like uh and

you run through people in a few

different careers in just a matter of

you know an hour or so so that was

really how it came about and what we did

about it quickly awesome yeah just from

my experience you know working with

clients and telling their stories the

career exploration is huge it's so fun

to use MVP minimum viable product of

course but you know it is kind of also

an All-Star player when it comes to the

value that it's delivering for people

and yeah people love it and all ages and

and all sorts of different applications

it's really great let's move on here and

talk about sort of some of the main

pieces of feedback we've received versus

is sort of the new version that we're

coming out with and what are users

looking for in a career exploration

offering so there are three big things

that we are uh changing of this new

version of career exploration based on

customer feedback number one is the

duration of the simulations are a lot

shorter this time so originally these

Sims were designed to you know have a

trainy master a skill so we focused a

lot on the mastering of using the tools

for that career and sometimes the

simulations could go up to like 15 20

minutes and you know after years of

talking to customers and doing research

customers generally responded that those

simulations are too long for you to just

get a taste of what it's like to have

this career so we cut it a lot shorter

and instead of focusing on you know

using the hand tools but rather we

provide this experience

that give user a taste what it's like to

be a construction worker for a day to be

a nurse for 5 minutes so now the

simulations are about 3 to five minutes

long and they generally respond to

customer feedback that they want to be

able to go through a bunch of

simulations in one setting um so that

was the first thing that we're doing

very differently and the second one is

uh we're providing a lot more career

clusters so the original C had four out

of our now 16 clusters okay and our goal

is to try to have careers in all 16

clusters eventually there will be a

priority to get uh clusters like Health

Sciences as that is one of the most

requested by customer and then last but

not the least uh we have added a lot

more diversity in our simulations um

instead of using one coach that we refer

to as Simon We Now Place almost a unique

coach in every single simulation so uh

when students get to try coaches from

different gender background racially and

culturally um and customers are

responding super well to that um

additional thing I will add is um

accessibility as well the accessibility

features that we have added in our new

simulations uh for example close

captioning um are also you know coming

back from our research and really being

well loved by our

customers cool and you started leading

into some of these new features we're

developing from an accessibility

standpoint let's talk about that what

new features are debuting in this new

version and how is this changing and

improving the experience for for

users yeah so there's a lot that we're

adding so Shelly just mentioned some of

the things around accessibility so close

capturing is the the biggest that's

probably our most requested feature that

we've received and so that's very

important you know we have a lot of

people who are either hard of hearing

English language Learners and even just

this younger Netflix Generation you know

the sort of a divide on people watching

content with captions versus not so

really there's something for everyone

and so this will be something we're

really really excited to to VI you here

the second thing is just around giving

instructors more granular data and

tracking for the first time at the

individual student classroom and

customer level we can actually identify

what student did what what did they like

what did they not like so that the

instructors can use that information to

ultimately get their students onto a

career pathway and that's really our

main goal the third thing that we're

really excited about is a dashboard for

the first time for career exploration so

this will be a self-service way for the

instructors to actually visualize that

data easily bunch of nice charts and

things like that ways to drill in down

to a student profile so that they can

learn adjust and then ultimately get

everyone where they need to go next and

then the last thing is a brand new

application menu system that really

helps support some of the use cases

we've seen around for exploration so in

particular whether you're in a classroom

setting or maybe you're running a career

fair and you just have like a lot of

people that you need to get through

quickly we have redesigned the

experience with that in mind and so we

will be debuting that as well uh yeah

the dashboard is really exciting I know

you and I have been talking about that

in terms of giving the instructors

feedback in terms of what the users are

really interested in but then also which

jobs you know are not really a good fit

for them as well right absolutely so

yeah we we a lot of some of the requests

that we've received have been well

actually I want to filter people out I

want to know what they don't want to do

because the last thing I want to do is

invest all this time money resources

into something only for them to discover

four five six weeks later that it's

actually something that they don't want

to do yeah what are we hoping that users

and organizations will get out of using

this career exploration

experience so I think most importantly

the the Explorers right the students one

we'll have a wider range of careers

shelle mentioned so there'll be more

career clusters so we're hoping to get

representation in all 16 of them as

opposed to the 23 that we have right now

uh 23 occupations in just four career

clusters uh the second thing is by with

the shorter simulations as you mentioned

you can do more in the same amount of

time so before if you only have 15

minutes or 20 minutes in the headset you

might only get one or two careers in

there so now you'll be able to go

through more and then actually be able

at the end of it to say well out of the

five that I did in my 20 minutes I

really like these three I was

wishy-washy on this one and then I

absolutely hated this other one there

was you know too much blood or something

like that I don't want to be I don't

want to be a nurse right so we're hoping

that they will they will have a better

sense of what they would like to do

going forward after this experience and

lastly just the the design is a lot

different it's just a lot more fun and

engaging you know our previous version

of career exploration was more focusing

on the Mastery of skills this is more

storytelling that's something that

people have noticed so you know you're

really task with solving a problem and

it's fun and meaningful and so we hope

that that's what the students get for

the instructors we're hoping that they

will be able to just take action by

learning with the that data so they can

say that you know for these students I

am going to give them additional

resources or spend some time with them

and get them or connect them with

employers or connect them with

Professionals in the field so they can

take that next step and then lastly for

those that do you know a lot of

employers um in other organizations as

well schools you know they kind of have

this career fair setting where they're

just trying get one focused thing in

mind and they just really want to be

able to generate interest and show

people something that they would have

never been able to experience yeah and

then also filter people out who you know

maybe it's not for them like maybe you

don't want to go 200 feet in the air and

fix electrical power Alles right and so

you know that's what we're hoping that

they'll get from this new experience no

that's awesome and for those of you yes

I love how this is great teaser content

too if you haven't looked into the new

experienced listeners at home we've got

some really cool stuff with the line

worker simulation and with the I think

it's the emergency room that there is

some some pretty engaging effects going

on in these simulations so if this is

peing your interest listeners if you're

INRI oh what's going on definitely check

it out and you will not be disappointed

pivoting a little bit sort of more into

the kind of behind the scenes the making

of I love I I asked this question on

almost every one of these where we're

interviewing the people who are actually

working on the the simulations what were

some like fun cool interesting

challenges that you encountered while

while building The Sims and trying to

make this real I always love hearing

about this um I think there are a couple

things that are you know considered

challenges but we also had a lot of fun

experimenting with these challenges the

number one thing is that technology this

career exploration 2 was the first batch

of simulations that we're building on

our own authoring tool this no code SL

loow code platform that we're calling

transfer

sdk2 what this platform allows us to do

is you know instead of a developer

coding a simulation we're empowering

people like designers to go in there and

then drag and drop a few things and then

boom you have a transfer like simulation

so this is sort of our first stab at

this technology which of course as we

continue to build our platform and this

as the MVP version of that platform we

we had to work out a lot of challenges

but it was a very fun journey and then

alongside that because the technology is

different we try to innovate on our

design and Sim production process as

well so like Bryant mentioned a lot of

these Sims designs are a lot more

storytelling a lot more

experiential and it was interesting for

us to find the unique balance between

learning and experiential you know we

wanted to be fun but at the same time

teaching people about something about a

career in this in this case and then um

at the same time we continue to innovate

our production processes you know from

the very beginning putting our designers

in the same room with our subject matter

expert to understand what their job is

all the way through you know production

and development and release cycle we're

constantly innovating on you know how we

can do things more collaboratively and

more efficiently awesome aome yeah and

you you teased a little bit about the

SDK I just want to see if you want to

drill down into that a little bit more

and sort of talk about the opportunities

that's going to open up for you know

internally externally like where where

what are the What's the horizon what are

the Big Dreams here with SDK with the uh

software developer kit

right so for you know internally we are

testing it out and we're trading our own

designers as uh the first batch of users

of this technology so we see our

developers coming back and asking

designers how do you find this platform

how do you like to use it going forward

we're Gathering a lot of feedback so we

can understand what are the new features

we can continue to build on this but you

know the long-term vision is that we're

uh we're going to build a global

Community using our own platform so

designers and subject matter experts

from all over the world can use this

platform and build a simulation about a

job title that none of us has even heard

about yeah that's so cool it's very

exciting cool speaking of developing new

Sims let's talk about clusters we

mentioned those clusters like Health

Sciences manufacturing etc those are the

overarching category of the jobs and

then underneath that that could be nurse

could be FLOTUS could be surgical tech

could be for manufacturing could be

welder could be electrician electrical

construction Etc so let's talk about

let's let's thrill the folks at home

with some new career simulations Well

Jack you covered most of them already

sorry I did not mean to steal I did not

mean to steal your thunder let's hear it

I would just add a few more things that

I personally find super exciting uh for

example we're building a trio

simulations you know a a three

simulations of broadband technicians and

these are the people that you know build

anywhere between cell phone towers and

uh underground drilling systems that

allow networks to pass through and then

line worker the one that you mentioned

where you have to climb up high on a

district distribution power line was

really exciting to play with and like I

mentioned before Health Sciences we

building uh we're releasing three

simulations around Health Sciences uh

surgical technologist EMT as well as

nurse because there's such a high demand

out there and then I think one thing

worth noting is you know we selected our

Career Cluster clusters this time with a

lot of upfront product Market fits

research so we know what we're going

into responding to what the job market

needs a good example is uh you know last

year the US government just passed this

a chip manufacturing bill so that we can

now produce semiconductor chips uh

domestically in the past I believe it

was all manufactured overseas and in

response to this bill we um are I

believe the first company in the world

that's creating a VR vocational training

simulation that teaches you to be a

semiconductor Manufacturing technician

that simulation is also being released

this round and uh very exciting awesome

that's so cool uh and and moving on just

taking a little bit of a step back to

kind of be be a little philosophical

about this whole career exploration you

know why is it more important than ever

to tell young people and job Seekers of

all ages about opportunities in you know

this wide array of different trades so I

I was reading recently some some figures

and there are about 10 million open jobs

right now in the US but only six million

unemployed people and so what that says

is there's a lot out there and there's

more jobs than people and so people

should have a choice right but the

challenge is that there's a a large gap

between people just even knowing what

these opportunities are and what's out

there right yeah and then also even if

you do know about those opportunities if

I'm going to be installing cell phone

towers or something like that like I

don't even know if I would like that

right right and so I think like what we

can do is by building these simulations

like really give people a taste of what

it's like for at least accomplishing one

task and just help them like expose them

to those things and then be able to

check things off or cross them off their

list on whether they like it and then

ultimately the longer term vision is

that we take more of a active role and

making sure that they get on that path

and actually fill some of these open

jobs so just feel like that's really

really important right now and just to

add to that you know our simulations

also provide more exposure to people who

would otherwise only have limited

opportunities to these careers like a

15-year-old kid wouldn't be able to

assist a surgeon on a knee surgery just

based on you know safety concerns and

now our what it is you know it's

probably for the best but yeah still

continue um and you know our simulations

give them an opportunity to use a bone

saw and cut through someone's knee and

be okay with it get in there get your

hands dirty kids

well doubling back a little bit to the

we mentioned the dashboard we mentioned

helping people find you know the right

path for them uh let's talk a little bit

about the role of data and analytics in

helping create these classroom to Career

Pathways for students and job Seekers

you know how do we see this evolving and

you know what role do data analytics

play now and how is it all brought

together with you know between our

offering and how uh these organizations

try to help people yeah so I think as a

short term for instructors in schools

for people who are recruiting for jobs

like right now they're they're really in

the dark it right they don't really know

who's interested who's not they have

difficulty getting access to people so a

lot of them have like their own way of

doing tracking and that can be

cumbersome time consuming so you know

right now if we are able to provide them

with that data through that dashboard uh

it will help them you know save them

time help them prioritize like who

should we be talking to about what um

and just really efficiently spend that

limited time that they have with

students to get them onto that next step

on the classrooms career pathway I think

longer term uh there's some really cool

things that we can do with with data and

analytics I'm really excited about that

at least for for transfer um you know we

can answer a bunch of questions there we

can use data to figure out like what

else should we build I mean there are

thousands and thousands of jobs out

there we'll start with a small number of

occupations with career exploration 2.0

but it's kind of endless on what we can

do so we can find those sort of hotpots

and gaps and what we should build out

more right um another thing that we

could do with data we can actually take

a more active role in helping these

students or explorers take that next

step instead of making the instructor do

all the work right so you know there are

some things that we could do with data

we could maybe start making

recommendations right maybe we should

recommend some other occupations that

you should try in VR or maybe we could

recommend training programs in your area

based on what you've liked and what you

didn't like we could recommend jobs to

you right so I think like just the first

step is just having all access to that

information and I think there's a lot

more that we could do to actually all

from the time that they're exposed in VR

all the way to actually getting them

into a job so I think that's one big

area that we see data playing going

forward awesome yeah I know we always we

talk about I said it in the setup for

this question we talk about the

classroom 2 career pathway and humans

are involved in every step of the way

but there's a great opportunity to pull

more and more robust information into

transfer into the VR setting and then

help you know yes you explored a bunch

of stuff here's some more information

you know we're just kind of setting them

up for success in as much as we can you

know before they start to then take more

and more steps in the real world and and

you know maybe there's more transfer

trading in their future who knows but

then they're at least you know they

we've given them all the information we

can before they even start building that

design of their pathway uh and then yes

help them along as they go so this has

been a really awesome conversation you

know covered a lot of ground I don't

know if either of you have any final

thoughts you want to offer before y all

wave at the camera you can't see us at

home but wave at the camera and Say

Goodbye bye-bye thank you Jack thanks

Jack okay hey you know sometimes it's

just that simple all right folks thanks

everybody so so so so so much for being

here uh Bryant Shelly thank you all the

folks at home that we we wouldn't be

here without you so thanks very much

foral was here transfer have a great day

take care everybody

bye

[Music]

a