A personal career coach for professionals starting over
Turn a career transition from a lonely guessing game into a guided path through tailored recommendations, real mentors, and a community that's been there.
Have you ever wondered what your life would be like
if you chose a different career?
For years as a teacher, my focus was on helping others find their path. But when it came time to navigate my own pivot into product design, I hit a wall. I was drowning in fragmented advice and generic job boards that completely ignored the skills I already had. The whole process felt incredibly lonely, and it left me with one question:
Why is changing careers so difficult, even for experienced professionals?
41% of the workforce is ready to pivot, but the system leaves them stranded
Changing careers is no longer the exception. Most people will do it several times, and a significant share keep doing it late into their working lives. Yet the support around them is still built for a first job, not a fourth: it assumes you already know the destination and only need help applying. For someone leaving an established career, the hard part is deciding what to move toward, and who can tell them what that work is actually like. That gap is what this project set out to close.
What already exists, and what people actually said
The market serves job seekers, not career changers
I audited 17 different career platforms across Canada. The pattern was clear: current solutions cater to people who already know their exact next step.
Products assume users just need another generic job board or are willing to pay for expensive private coaching.
Standalone mentorship networks lack the context a mid-career pivot needs, leaving space for a platform that connects resources with the right mentors.
The hidden cost of a career pivot
I spoke with three professionals who made drastic career leaps. Their stories revealed a shared reality: without an accessible network, transitioning is a lonely and unnecessarily time-consuming process.
"Some sort of mentorship is so important when going through transitions."
— A massage therapist who navigated multiple occupations, from horse keeping to sales.
"I did everything on my own, which cost me a lot of time."
— An artist who transitioned from marine biology.
"I would have liked to meet someone who works in the field that I was interested in to hear about the actual work environment."
— A software developer student transitioning from childcare education.
All three wanted a connection with someone already working in their target field. Without one, building a new path came down to trial and error.
The three core frictions stalling career transitions
No personalized starting point
Advice is everywhere, but it is too broad. Job boards and existing resources are rarely tailored to a professional's actual background or transferable skills.
Mentorship is a closed network
Finding someone who has successfully navigated the same transition is difficult. Guidance and mentorship currently rely heavily on existing personal connections.
No real-world context
Professionals need a reliable space to hear real-world stories. There are few accessible ways to ask questions and learn what the new career is actually like day-to-day.
Cutting the noise: prioritizing the right features
I mapped out every possible feature to solve these frictions. Reviewing that ideation with a career expert, we saw the product risking feature bloat, so we cut the passive and out-of-scope ideas and kept only what users could act on.
Instead of sending users away to take external personality tests, we focused on gathering their actual experience and skill sets directly to provide immediately curated resources.
We removed formal career coaches and psychologists from the scope. The priority was creating a space for peer networking and direct connections with industry mentors.
Reading about someone else's success does not provide practical help. We replaced one-way inspirational speeches with an active forum where users can ask real questions and get informative answers.
Tailored recommendations, not a job board
A pivot takes more than matching past job titles. Onboarding captures professional skills, soft skills, and workplace priorities, and that profile drives every career match percentage and mentor suggestion on the platform.
Direct access to industry mentors
Getting into a new field usually means knowing the right people. This opens closed networks by connecting users directly with established professionals in their target industry. Because cold outreach is intimidating, they can send a short message for a quick question or a structured request for long-term mentorship.
A community that's already been there
Career transitions feel isolating. The forum gives users a place to ask questions and read real stories from peers who have made the same move, and switching between career topics keeps exploration open.
Where it landed
Testing across both in-person and online sessions strongly validated the product's direction. While revealing a few minor visual and text elements to refine, participants successfully completed the tasks and shared overwhelmingly positive feedback.
"Getting recommendations based on my specific skills and preferences really feels like having a personal career coach at hand."
— User testing participant"The flow is so straightforward. For the first time, figuring out my next career move felt manageable instead of completely overwhelming."
— User testing participantBuilding a tool designed to solve a directly experienced problem was deeply satisfying. Seeing that exact value translate to the users made the entire journey incredibly meaningful.
Three things I'm taking forward
Prioritizing local market context
Career transition tools need to reflect the realities of the local job market. Bringing in region-specific labour data, standards, and resources can make recommendations more relevant and actionable.
Making the most of expert collaboration
Working with a subject matter expert taught me to communicate with greater focus. With limited time, clearly framing the right questions helps make each conversation more meaningful and productive.
An open question about the business model
How might the platform build and retain an active mentor community at scale? Creating a sustainable model for mentor participation remains an important next step for long-term service delivery.
Cudagra
2,000 people had signed up, but almost nobody was playing. Redesigned the profile and invite flow around trust between strangers, turning sign-ups into a weekly habit.
Creating a Path to Well-Being in the Social Media Maze
Social media's effect on well-being is tangled and contradictory. Mapped it as causal and actor system maps to find where the system can actually be moved.
eatt
Hosts planning group meals were chasing allergy info through scattered texts, and one missed reply could put someone at real risk. Built a way to collect detailed allergy info from every participant and recommend menus that work for the whole group.