Questions/Answers

Today, some jobseekers send out many resumes, not knowing whether there is a good job fit or they have the skills employers are looking for. Employers also have a similar problem – they have to sieve through several CVs (curricula vitae), sometimes leading to a hit or miss, and may end up not finding someone or the best fit for the role. This problem is compounded in the present fast-paced economy, where jobs are constantly evolving - old roles are being phased out, with new roles emerging. Retrenchment is on the rise, and jobseekers above a certain age find it harder to get back into the workforce. Developed to help address the job-skills mismatch in the labour market, MyCareersFuture aims to intelligently match jobseekers to the right opportunities. On the jobseeker side, the focus is on helping the working population remain relevant and employable through diversification and upgrading, and in so supporting the best job match, so that they can continue to add value to the economy. On the employer side, the focus is on reducing the time and effort needed to find apt candidates, so that enterprise productivity will not be hampered but continue to grow.

MyCareersFuture is aimed at providing job seekers a smarter and faster way to find the right opportunities in the next phase of their careers. Aligned with the Government’s efforts to build an adaptable and competent workforce for the careers of the future, as well as Singapore’s Smart Nation vision to co-create and deliver more citizen-centric Government digital services, MyCareersFuture taps on advanced algorithms and user experience design to increase both employability and productivity nationwide.

MyCareersFuture supports SDG 1, 4 8 and 10. MyCareersFuture is a skills-based job matching platform that empowers citizens with a smarter way to search for jobs. It also enables jobseekers to discover adjacent roles that they may also be suited for. In addition, it helps job seekers to identify potential skill gaps and links them to relevant courses that they may need to attend to achieve their desired job move. To further aid citizens who are at risk of long term unemployment, MyCareersFuture also works in a seamless scheme discovery process. With a simple click of a button, jobseekers are able to discover jobs that are supported by various government support schemes – these schemes incentivise employers to consider jobseekers who are often overlooked, such as those who are mature, retrenched or looking to move into a new role.

MyCareersFuture offers attractive job opportunities and working conditions to promote economic sustainability for Singapore. Employers posting their jobs on MyCareersFuture are required to comply with the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. Exemplary employers who have committed to developing their human capital and implemented fair, responsible and progressive employment practices are clearly labelled so that jobseekers are able to identify them easily. This encourages all employers to uphold an inclusive workplace and care for the well-being of their employees, therefore promoting a socially sustainable environment within their organisations.

Over a decade ago, in a bid to keep up with economic growth in spite of a declining fertility rate, Singapore had a relatively open immigration strategy. The implementation of this strategy led to a sense of social unease; since then, the government has been adjusting its policies in order to balance talent scarcity in high-growth sectors, and ensuring that there will be employment opportunities for its citizens in these sectors. Today, as part of the Fair Consideration Framework, employers first have to post their job on MyCareersFuture before they apply for an Employment Pass to hire a foreigner. This is part of the Government’s overall effort to strengthen the Singaporean core in the workforce. It sets out clear expectations for companies to consider Singaporeans fairly for job opportunities.

This is part of the Government’s overall effort to strengthen the Singaporean core in the workforce. It sets out clear expectations for companies to consider Singaporeans fairly for job opportunities.

MyCareersFuture aims to help jobseekers who are actively looking to find suitable jobs, help displaced jobseekers upskill and stay relevant, as well as incentivise discriminatory employers to be more receptive towards previously overlooked candidates. Jobseekers who have been retrenched or unemployed for 6 months or more can apply for jobs tagged as being part of the Career Support Programme. This programme incentivises employers to hire such mature-age candidates. They can also receive support from career coaches, for help that goes beyond MyCareersFuture. Jobseekers who are intending to make a mid-career switch can select jobs tagged as being part of the Professional Conversion Programme. With this programme, employers are incentivised to hire candidates with no or little relevant experience, while giving them a chance to undergo skills conversion and move into new occupations or sectors that have good prospects and opportunities for progression. This is also done through supported SGUnited jobs, SGUnited Traineeships, SGUnited Midcareer Pathways to help hard-hit jobseekers to get through employment gaps. Jobseekers who are intending to rejoin the workforce after a break can look out for jobs tagged with Career Trial. With this programme, Jobseekers are given an opportunity to gain experience through a short-term trial while employers can assess their job fit before offering employment.

MyCareersFuture is built using the highly responsive Agile methodology, so as to adapt to fast-changing user needs throughout the entire product life cycle. It was developed and launched in a record eight months, giving the public a smarter way to search for jobs during a time of economic volatility. With the Agile approach to development, changes can be implemented more quickly in view of users’ needs and items to be developed can be prioritised accordingly. This Agile approach enabled the team to develop the beta version of MyCareersFuture over a much shorter period as compared to the traditional waterfall approach, which may not have been able to address the users’ needs in a responsive manner. To deliver the best services, MyCareersFuture team carried out design thinking workshops, performed extensive and continuous one-on-one user testing with end users i.e. jobseekers and employers, as well as developed prototypes to validate the features before going into full development. Users were able to view wireframes of key features to be developed and provide inputs so that the MyCareersFuture team could make iterative improvements to the features/ functions. In addition to feedback channels such as contact forms and surveys, MyCareersFuture also makes use of data analytics to understand the actual usage of the platform. This helps to further generate behavioural insights to shape user-driven iterative enhancements and evaluate the effectiveness of features that have been rolled out. New functionalities, such as Resume Optimiser, was also introduced to help jobseekers customise their resume for each job application.

MyCareersFuture faced obstacles presented by legacy systems. Decisions made during the tenure for these systems had become technologically outdated and inefficient by today’s standards. The MyCareersFuture team reviewed the rules, and provided alternative solutions. For example, in the legacy system (“Jobs Bank”), the jobseeker was originally presented with 37 fields for a job application. This information was required for business intelligence purposes, but proved to be an obstacle as it introduced unnecessary friction for users. The MyCareersFuture team evaluated these fields and engaged internal as well as external teams to understand user needs, before coming up with alternative ways to streamline the required information. As a result, 22 fields were dropped from the original 37, -- which translates into a 60% reduction in form filling for users.

To deliver a robust product that meets the needs of citizens, the team uses cutting edge technologies and taps into industry best practices. The team also partnered with a mix of tech start-ups and established service providers to promote private industry collaboration. This ensured a balance between the technology and expertise required to deliver an optimal experience. MyCareersFuture is the first government product to open source its user interface for citizens to collaborate on GitLab. The team also open sourced the boilerplates on GitHub and created GovTech presence on NPM - largest open source dependency management system, as well as DockerHub - world's repository for Docker containers. It is a pioneer product on the government's first cloud platform as a service, and in turn helped the cloud team gain more insights into reinforcing their system, while also discovering more potential use cases.

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MyCareersFuture works with industry leaders such as WCC to tap on its semantic match engine powered by the private player's machine learning powered labour market ontology. This ontology provides the concepts, as found in the CV and job documents, that form the core of suggestion engine that matches the appropriate talent with the job requirements. This supports the on-going use of microservices and containerisation to support rapid deployment and scalability.

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As neighbouring countries in the region become more developed and the economy becomes increasingly dynamic, there will be an increasing need to help active job seekers search for suitable jobs, help displaced jobseekers up-skill and stay relevant, as well as incentivise discriminatory employers to be more receptive towards previously overlooked candidates. The World Bank office in Mongolia came across MyCareersFuture and was keen to adapt it. A meeting was set up with the Mongolian team, and the MyCareersFuture team conducted a demo to share key knowledge and learnings.

GovTech assembled a cross-functional development team from a pool of internal specialists, combined with augmented consultants from a vendor pool. To provide the domain expertise, Workforce Singapore tapped into the knowledge of subject matter experts, such as Career Coaches, from within the organisation. On the technical front, the MyCareersFuture team also works with local startups as well as industry leaders to enhance the site’s capabilities. Such private sector driven initiatives enable MyCareersFuture to incorporate smart job-matching technology and disseminate information on job vacancies to more jobseekers to help them in their job search.

In the past, product development was commonly outsourced to vendors. Even though documentation was made, knowledge gaps still existed during the handover of projects. Building a cross-functional team from a pool of internal specialists, combined with augmented consultants from a vendor pool, means that the know-how stays within the organisation and can be maintained over time, while still facilitating knowledge transfer from the private sector to the government sector. This is a more sustainable solution, both in financial and institutional terms, than fully outsourcing the development of the product. The arrangement results in a more efficient use of time and resources, while concurrently developing internal expertise.

Yes

MyCareersFuture was evaluated internally by the Workforce Singapore product team. They took a look at the surveys that users fill in on the site, as well as helpdesk queries and feedback as raised by users.

Survey participants filled in their satisfaction ratings for the job matching portal for the period of January to May 2020. Out of 1,050 respondents, 58% indicated a satisfaction rating between 4-6, 6 being the highest.

The main evaluation finding was that the skill match score and government support schemes are a unique offering that positively serve the targeted jobseekers on MyCareersFuture. The recommendation is to personalise job recommendations based on both skill match score as well as relevant government support schemes so that users will apply for jobs that they stand a higher chance for. A majority of users found the skill match score to be useful in identifying jobs to apply for, to discover other suitable jobs they may have been unaware of, and to highlight skills to the employers. A huge proportion of users were also interested in at least one government support scheme. As part of this evaluation, MyCareersFuture is also evaluated against the Digital Service Standards, to meet the Digital Government Blueprint goal of delivering digital services that are easy, seamless and relevant for our citizens and businesses.

The MyCareersFuture predecessor, Jobs Bank, came about because of a Ministry of Manpower policy. This policy required employers to first post their jobs on the portal to open up the opportunity to local jobseekers, before applying for Employment Passes to hire foreign talent. MyCareersFuture is a fairly young initiative that is a collaboration between Workforce Singapore (a statutory board under the Ministry of Manpower) and Government Technology Agency (GovTech). MyCareersFuture is aligned with Workforce Singapore’s goal in overseeing the transformation of the local workforce and industry to meet ongoing economic challenges, as well as GovTech’s mission to harness the best digital technologies to make a difference to the everyday lives of people in Singapore. Within Workforce Singapore, the business team is working closely with other divisions such as the career coach team and the business intelligence team as part of integrated efforts to meet the needs of jobseekers and employers. Within GovTech, the development team is working closely with other divisions such as the data science team as well as the behavioural insights team to tap on a wealth of expertise to improve the job matching chances for all citizens.

MyCareersFuture is a collaboration between GovTech and Workforce Singapore, and multiple government agencies as partners, to provide resources that Singaporeans can readily access. Synergy with MySkillsFuture.sg also ensures that job seekers have a more holistic journey to search for overarching career and training needs. MyCareersFuture also partners private players to incorporate smart job-matching technology and complement efforts to reach more jobseekers. The most important co-creators, however, are the citizens that interact and use the product. A two-prong approach has been used to continually engage citizens – both on the job seeker and employer side – at different phases of product development. Before designing new features, interviews are conducted to understand the needs and pain points of jobseekers and employers. Based on these deeper insights, wireframes and prototypes are developed and subsequently tested with a similar audience to elicit feedback. After implementation, data analytics, surveys, a help centre and production logs are used to monitor actual usage. A/B testing is also used to trial behavioural insights interventions. This information is then used to identify any issues and evaluate the effectiveness of features that have been rolled out. The learnings are also strategically used to prioritise upcoming enhancements.

At the start of the project, the stakeholders did not have a sufficient understanding of the Agile methodology. As a result, they expected the product to be up by a certain date. This led to a rushed Minimum Viable Product in order to meet the deadlines and in turn building up technical and design debts. Furthermore, the time and effort needed for third party integrations had been underestimated. Since third party integrations have inherent dependencies, the team was unable to foresee the potential hiccups and roadblocks from the other side. From these experiences, one of the key lessons learned is that an Agile mindset is critical to the digital transformation of government agencies. This requires repeated engaging and coaching of product owners and stakeholders, thinking in terms of small increments in order to reduce time to market and gather user feedback, building an appetite for hypothesis testing and experimentation, as well as constantly inspecting and adapting in the spirit of continuous improvement.