My Work Ready
The Today Screen
The Today screen is the participant's home screen where they land after logging in and can access all components of My Work Ready. The Today workflow systematically guides the participant step by step through the application. The first four steps in My Work Ready are Work Ready Soft Skills, Career Interests, Financial Reality Check, and Work Ready Academic Skills. When participants complete Steps 1-4, they unlock additional modules that include training courseware to help them improve their academic and soft skills. Completing the training modules will help participants gain new skills and achieve higher levels that will result in occupation recommendations in higher job zones.
Step 1: Work Ready Soft Skills offers a series of diagnostic quizzes that evaluate the participant's soft skills in four main areas: communicating effectively, conveying professionalism, promoting teamwork and collaboration, and thinking critically and solving problems Participants are presented with real life workplace scenarios and are asked to select the best and worst way to handle each situation. When complete, participants can see their scores in each subject area to identify which learning objectives require more practice.
Step 2: Career Interests consists of three self-surveys designed to help participants identify their strengths and interests to match them to possible careers. My Interests has participants rank their interest in various activities from "strongly like" to "strongly dislike." My Occupations has participants select and prioritize important work factors such as "flexible hours," "responsibility for others," or "problem solving" to generate a list of potential occupations. My Work Values presents participants with twenty work values such as receiving recognition, good working conditions, or getting along well with coworkers, and asks participants to rank these values from most important to least important.
Once participants complete this step, they can access their Career Plan.
Step 3: Financial Reality Check is a budgeting tool that helps participants create a budget and identify careers that can support their lifestyle. Participants have the choice of tallying their lifestyle expenses first to identify the salary they will need, or selecting a career first and creating a budget based on the average salary for that career. Participants are asked to input their monthly expenses for housing, transportation, healthcare, and more, to create a detailed, personalized budget plan.
When the budget is complete, My Work Ready generates a list of recommended careers that offer the salary needed to cover the participant's expenses.
Step 4: Work Ready Academic Skills evaluates participants' foundational math, reading, and data analysis skills. Participants complete three quizzes to determine their achievement level in each subject area. Achievement levels range from 1-5 and correspond to the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET Job Zones to help determine participants' readiness to pursue certain careers.
Work Ready Soft Skills Training offers further practice to help participants hone their soft skills. Training modules include Communicating Effectively, Conveying Professionalism, Promoting Teamwork and Collaboration, and Thinking Critically and Solving Problems. Participants can use their scores from the evaluations in Step 1 to determine where they need additional practice. When participants complete the training, they can choose to retake the quizzes in Step 1 to improve their scores.
Work Ready Academic Skills Training offers further practice to help participants improve their academic skills. Training modules include Work Ready Math, Work Ready Reading, and Work Ready Data. Participants can use their scores from the evaluations in Step 4 to determine where they need additional practice. When participants complete the training, they can choose to retake the quizzes in Step 4 to improve their scores.
