Jobready

Soft skills are key to successful job access, especially for young people from underprivileged backgrounds, and will become a distinguishing factor between two candidates with the same level of qualification in tomorrow’s job market. 

In order to address this issue, we built a project called Jobready : an online and offline program, based on a platform jobready.fr that will help youth identify, enhance, evaluate and develop their soft skills, by involving an ecosystem of higher education institutions, companies and nonprofits. 

Our goal is that young people become authors of their own educational and professional paths, through learning by doing, peer-to-peer and life-long experiential learning.

The scaling up of our project would help our target population to apply for jobs abroad, which is key in today’s economy, thanks to a greater recognition of our initiative worldwide.

In 2016, the World Economic Forum published a report titled “The Future of Jobs Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. They shared the idea that soft skills are globally becoming a business imperative because technical skills are losing relevance as the nature of work is disrupted.

Young people from underprivileged backgrounds particularly face this challenge. For them more than for anyone else, soft skill recognition could be a comparative advantage to face the upcoming mass unemployment.

 Yet, as this notion is not often referred to in academic environment, soft skills are little known and especially in priority areas in which youths grow up with alternative (but just as valuable for soft skills acquisition) experiences:(sport practice, familial responsibilities, travels to country of origin…) . 

In France, soft skills are a key issue in recruitment processes, professional development and employability as : 

• 20% of wage gaps between people with equivalent diplomas are due to soft skills ;

• 31% of French recruiters consider soft skills as the main selection criteria for entry level jobs ;

• 60% of recruiters consider that behavioural competencies are more important than technical skills, and 57% look first at behavioural competencies stated in the resume.

To tackle this issue, Jobready helps young people identify, enhance and develop their soft skills.  A focus is particularly given on non-academic or volunteering experiences. Our goal is to democratize the access to soft skills recognition for all the youth of France, regardless of their social, economic or cultural backgrounds.

Jobready is based on a digital platform jobready.fr, that involves :

• Self-assessment: A chatbot and an algorithm qualify any kind of life experience through guiding questions. Every answer is matched with skills, that can be assessed by a 360° evaluation (by the user, peers and a referent of his choosing) and certified by an Open Badge.

• A mission board: The platform offers a wide array of experiences  (sport, student job, volunteering) to develop targeted soft skills 

• A skills-center: Pedagogical tools (videos, MOOCs, research articles) to develop knowledge on soft skills.

Jobready.fr is completed by a series of 3 workshops (2 hours each) that help participants master the possibilities offered by the platform and realise the richness of their life trajectories regarding soft skills: 

• "Identify your soft skills”: an awareness-raising workshop 

• “Get to know yourself”: a reflection workshop 

• “Give value to your life experiences”: a training workshop .

Jobready adresses young people (16-30 years old) with a focus on youths from underprivileged backgrounds living in priority neighbourhoods and rural areas. They are identified in collaboration with local actors in order to reach youths who are furthest from the notion of soft skills. 

Jobready’s approach regarding partnerships is distinctive as we equip local actors through our training program with tools so they are able to talk independently to their beneficiaries about soft skills, Jobready being a complement to their existing devices. Jobready adds competences to the partner’s expertise, in order to improve its program results in particular upon youths’ professional integration and employability. 

Jobready is aimed towards:

• Young students enhancing their diploma;

• Young job-seekers;

• Youths looking for a career change or a civic commitment, wishing to value their past experiences to make the best choices for the future;

• Local actors wishing to include soft skills in their current devices.

Today, after the successful launching of jobready.fr, our priority is to develop workshops at the national level in order to increase the number of people reached. We currently implement our workshops in  targeted  areas in collaboration with our regional antenas : Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie. 

Jobready relates to the “Good Jobs & Inclusive entrepreneurship” Challenge, as it helps youths identify, enhance and develop their soft skills. Jobready helps them foster their professional and social integration and face the changes in the world of work especially in the context of the upcoming economic crisis. 

With its digital platform open to everyone, Jobready reaches the largest number of people. The mix with workshops implemented in cooperation with local actors targets very specifically young people from underprivileged backgrounds, thus reaching those who are furthest from this notion of soft skills, while most in need of professional integration.

Jobready is an innovative program as :

• It is a mix of digital and face-to-face approaches, that aims at reaching a high number of people with a digital platform open to everyone, and at the same time reaching reaching young people that are furthest from the notion of soft skills by working with local partners

• Jobready.fr is the first platform in France using Open Badges to certify soft skills

• Jobready.fr uses a chatbot, that can identify the soft skills one has developed in any given life experience

• The program’s governance involves private companies: they are at the core of the project, Jobready is thus a way to bring together the needs of job seekers and companies. 

Jobready is designed to address specifically youths, as our platform has been gamified in order to target this particular population:

• When users go to Jobready.fr, they are oriented towards our chatbot i.e George: a malicious parrot interacting with the user using riddles, jokes and a challenging tone. This aims at creating a safe space to discuss experiences, avoiding self-censorship and overcoming the impersonal numerical barriers.

• The user gets points for each skill identified, badges certify successes with a graduation system, he is challenged to get involved on the platform and in missions.

• Each skill is associated to a definition and references. To keep the recreational approach, Jobready uses pop culture references (extracts of music videos, movies, TV shows). For instance we use Game of Thrones to illustrate strategy and diplomacy, Beyonce for visual communication.

The digital platform Jobready.fr, hosted on ABS, uses the following core technologies : 

• A custom chatbot (VueJS/Html/Css/Php) : able to communicate via an instant messaging system. It contains 39 questions and more than 30 pre-determined scenarios. Each answer matches soft skills detailed in the Jobready frame of reference. This system is currently being improved with the help of Accenture by integrating natural learning processing (NLP) and to involve Artificial Intelligence in the chatbot system.

• Predict skills on missions : Accenture also helps Jobready developed an Application Programming Interface (API) that qualifies missions in soft skills using NLP. The algorithm follows different questions of the chatbot. It identifies the type, the profession, the tasks, the public... and it calculates the similarity with answers to match soft skills. We use the library Spacy for pre-processing and the model FastText to convert part of the description into vector in order to calculate similarities.

• Openbadges : an image that contains metadata that certifies the soft skills of an user. We deliver 3 levels of OpenBadges per soft skills based on the number of 360° evaluations and the duration of the mobilization of the skill during the experiences.

• The chatbot uses an algorithm to match any kind of life experience with skills, with pre-determined scenario. The matching algorithm is based on a matrix developed by a researcher, that matches each experience with a soft skill from the Jobready framework : the intelligence matches the user’s answer with the matrix, matched itself with the soft skills framework. The intelligence uses FastText vector similarities (library for learning of words and text classification developed by Facebook’s AI Research), a technology used by the Wikipedia platform.

• Open Badges are digital badges packing all necessary informations. The only reliable means to certify an Open Badge is a peer evaluation, used by Jobready. Open Badges are a recognised tool, that can be integrated into widely used platforms such as Linkedin.

• Jobready soft skills frame of reference is a frame of 45 soft skills, split into 11 families of skills, designed by a researched expert of work organisation and approved by external collaborators (HR, consulting firms). This frame is based on the one designed by the Elene4work consortium (12 european universities) during a program funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. 25 frames of reference have been tested before choosing Elene4work’s, judged the most relevant on soft skills. This frame of reference on soft skills is a complement of the PIX frame work on digital skills developed by the French government.

TOC 1 - Young people

Target population : Youths 16-30 years old.

• Students

• Young people looking for a new job/career change

• Young people looking for a commitment (civic service, volunteering)

Activities : 

• Digital program : general diagnosis, filling in life experiences, linking experiences with skills, assessing skills, certifying skills, developing skills

• Workshops : 3 workshops designed to fit the needs of youth from underprivileged backgrounds

Impacts : 

• Understanding soft skills : definition, mechanism (developing soft skills through experiences), importance and value on the job market

• Knowing yourself : your skills, the potential of your experiences, your motivations and wishes, your needs

• Developing interest : to develop new soft skills, to commit to civic engagements

• Developing soft skills: self-assessment, oral communication, team work/receiving feedbacks and understanding someone else’s perception

• Daring: to tell one’s life experiences (application letter, resume, interview, daily), to go further (develop new skills, commit in civic missions, apply for trainings, jobs, civic commitments), to reach out to others

Social mission : reduce inequalities for young people from underprivileged backrgrounds, by making them aware of their soft skills, and by helping them developing and enhancing their soft skills. 

TOC 2 - Organizations

Target populations : 

• Higher education institutions : universities, business/engineering schools, vocational school

• Associations

• Insertion structures

Activities : 

• Workshops facilitation 

• Transfer the pedagogical tools to local partners so they can lead soft skills workshops for their target population autonomously (1 month) :

1. Attend a workshop as a participant

2. Receive training materials

3. Co-lead 1-3 workshops with Jobready, receiving feedbacks 

4. Lead a workshop, whilst being observed by Jobready for final feedback

Impact : 

• Developing skills : on soft skills (definition, value, how to identify/enhance them), on workshop facilitation

• Handling Jobready tools : soft skills framework, digital platform, workshops animation

• Knowing better the organization’s beneficiaries : their life experiences, their skills, their potential

• Improving relationships with the organization’s beneficiaries

• Opening up to other organizations : discovering organizations in the area, enhancing its visibility, developing partnerships

• Developing its activities : diversifying the offer of service, incorporating new support tools, improving results and impact for beneficiaries (ex : better professional integration/student jobs, well-being). 

Our actions are currently being implemented in France. Within the next year, subject to the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemy, we will : 

• Launch an experimentation in Northern Africa and in Western Africa. 

• Explore further our opportunities in collaboration with partner associations in Southern Europe

We expect to reach : 

• 2019-2020 : 5 000 people
• 2020-2021 : 20 000 people
• 2024-2025 : 150 000 people

Within 5 years, we expect to reach 150 000 people by making ourselves known, by legitimizing our approach, raising mode funds in order to have a national coverage with our actions. The number of people reached by Jobready should also be increased by the implementation of our devices abroad within the next 5 years. 

Jobready aims to :

• Improve youths’ professional integration through the valorization of their soft skills

• Equip youths to achieve their career objectives by fighting self-censorship and help them improve their self-assessment abilities

• Highlight success stories of youths coming from priority neighbourhoods

• Strengthen links with public authorities and local companies to support youth’s professional integration

• Equip local actors through animation of workshops and skills transfer, in order to make them independent to talk about soft skills 

Through a mix of online and offline tools, JobReady has a concrete impact upon:

• Youths’ orientation: By helping them identify their experiences and fight self-censorship, Jobready helps youths make their orientation choices freely with a better knowledge of their capacities.

• Youths’ access to labor market and employability: By helping them identify and talk about their softskills, Jobready helps youths assert themselves, highlight their capacities during job-seeking process. Jobready’s Open Badges assert competencies listed in a European reference system sought after by employers. Educational tools provided on Jobready.fr further help young people develop skills and thus improve their employability.

• Youths’ involvement: By enhancing all kind of experiences and encouraging youths to get involved in their communities through the Mission Board (volunteering, internship offers). 

In the next five years, we aim at supporting 150 000 youths and at having a broad impact by equipping our partners to talk independently about soft skills. Jobready is easily translatable, therefore we seek to replicate our tools so they can be used in other countries.

In the next few years, the main challenge for Jobready will be raising of funds to keep implementing Jobready workshops and to reach as many young people as possible. 

The potential lack of philanthropy, given by major companies and reduced due to the Covid-19 crisis (reorientation of funds towards health-related projects or lack of disponible ressources for philanthropy) is one of the major threats that the program faces. 

In order to overcome this challenge, the Jobready program may have to shift its business model. We have hence prepared a contingency plan, that would help us prevail if our partners were to drastically reduce their financial contributions. 

The subsequent challenge that Jobready could face after the reducing of its operating budget is that its development plan will be impacted. 

At the moment the program is implemented territorially within three regions in France. It was our plan to open new branches in two or three new French regions (out of 13) with in the next 2 years. This plan might be hindered due to the sanitary crisis and its economical repercussions. The opening of these new regions might be of great help in order to help the program recognition and its hindrance would be a barrier to the achievement of our quantitative goals. 

In order to raise funds, we are working on 3 solutions: 

• developing economical partnerships with organizations whose beneficiaries use the platform

• developing partnerships with private companies

• developing international partnerships, including with international Foundations. 

In order to develop those partnerships, Jobready team includes a Program Director and a head of Development and Partnerships. The team works in close collaboration with Article 1’s department dedicated to partnership development and fundraising, including at the european and international level. 

In order to address the issue of our territorial development, we have entirely digitalized our workshops, thus making us able to lead workshops throughout the country. Even though this solution is not optimal (e.g a prospection meeting is more efficient in person than online) it will allow us to expand countrywide without necessarily having to have offices in all of our target regions. 

Jobready is a program launched by Article 1, a French NGO with over 15 years of experience striving for a society in which educational orientation, academic success and professional integration would not rely on social, economic and cultural backgrounds. We aim to achieve equal access to higher education and equal job opportunities for underprivileged students. In 2018-2019, we supported over 85 000 youths in their educational and professional successes, through different programs : 

• INSPIRE: vocational guidance for high school students;

• SUCCEED: overall success through studies, commitment and entrepreneurship;

• SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: identify and enhance soft skills through the Jobready program. 

Jobready Team includes : 

• 8 full-time staff
• 2 half-time staff (50%)

Jobready is a program developed and implemented : 

• By a team of a technical experts and a research team. All having a good understanding of issues regarding soft skill recognition, particularly for our target population 

• With the support of Accenture and Google, two firms with expert knowledge of digital and technological issues

• With the support of the French government as part of the “Tech for good” program and several other calls for proposals.

Jobready implements its programs in collaboration with local actors working with youths : 

• Territorial authorities

• Higher education institutions

• Regional and departemental actors

• Local actors (NGOs, cultural and sport associations, social workers, unemployment  centers...)

Jobready works with private companies supporting the development of the program and committing to soft skills recognition by signing the Jobready Manifesto (Carrefour, Orange, Amazon, CDISCOUNT, BNP Paribas, L’oréal…) encouraging more diversity in HR processes thanks to greater recognition of soft skills within employment processes. 

Our business model relies on : 

• Payment for workshop facilitation

• Payment for universities, private companies, associations wishing to have access to the back office of the platform Jobready.fr in order to monitor the acquisition of soft skills by their beneficiaries

Price policy depends on the partner organization's size and capacity to pay, in order to ensure access to the Jobready tools for those most in need. Governmental support help us limit costs for organisations supporting less privileged people.

2018-2020 : Fundraising campain (philantropies) to fund investment costs/creation of tools. Jobready develops a network of partners and asserts the efficiency of its devices.

Starting in 2021 : Progressive transition to  income generation through :

• Access to platform’s backoffice : access to platform backoffice will be subject to a subscription with a cost adapted to the partner’s specific situation. This access  enables partners to certify Open Badges themselves and to follow the acquisition of soft skills of their beneficiaries.

• Workshops facilitation : facilitation of workshops or partners training sessions to ensure skills transfer will be charged with a cost adapted to the partner’s specific situation.

• Sponsoring : by private companies invested in the subject of soft skills, that can come into being a lever for their CSR strategy and their employer brand (workshop facilitation, public speaking on the subject of soft skills).

For each funding source, the cost charged is estimated according to each partner type (private companies, non-profits, employment actors) ith preferential rates for actors that address young people, and higher fees for private companies/private schools. 

With Ministries and private fundings, we are able to offer our actions towards our target groups free of charge for key local actors, thus reaching a greater number of partners and increasing our impact.

 As a marginal approach, we wish to offer less privileged people the opportunity to identify their soft skills without any financial contribution from themselves/their local organisation (even though we think few people will autonomously subscribe to the platform).

Jobready’s application to MIT Solve is part of the strategy to develop the devices abroad, as well the strategy to raise funds from international funders. Joining Solve community would be a unique opportunity to : 

• Meet peers, experts and funders, in order to get feedbacks on their own experiences and to hear advices for Jobready’s development. 

• Engage with funders  

• Get a highly valuable recognition from an internationally recognized insitution

Jobready's main challenges in the next few years is the raising of necessary funds to keep developing workshops and implementing our solution. Therefore, we aim at developing partnerships with peers to get feedbacks on their own experience, and with funders to connect with potential funds-providers. 

We have identified in particular the following MIT Solver partners that would be highly  interesting to exchange with : 

• Atlassian Foundation International : as an international foundation with an aim to prepare“disadvantaged youth for the workforce of the future”

• CISCO : as an international foundation with a focus on serving the undeserved

MIT Solve Partners also includes several companies who we partner with at the French national level, and who it would be interesting to develop partnerships with at a more global level.

Soft skills are becoming an imperative in recruitment processes.We think it is also a way to recognize the richness of the life trajectories young people from underprivileged backgrounds often have. Soft skill recognition can hence help these young people face the upcoming economical challenges around the world. 

Jobready offers a program designed specifically for them backgrounds in order to help and support their professional integration. 

Jobready is a mix of online and offline tools that will help youth identify, enhance, evaluate and develop their soft skills so they can access the job market knowing the richness of their backgrounds and how their soft skills are sought after by employers. 

The use of a digital platform, allowing Jobready to reach a significant number of people, and the implementation of workshops in collaboration with local organisations, allowing us to reach those who are furthest from this notion of soft skills, qualify Jobready for the MIT Solver Prize under the “Good Jobs & Inclusive Entrepreneurship” Challenge. 

The Prize will help us face the upcoming economical crisis in order to keep supporting young people and especially youths from underprivileged backgrounds in their professional integration. By allowing this transferable program to reach a larger audience, the Prize will help us make soft skill identification and valorisation the new means to ease the youth enter the job market and achieve their career goals.

Jobready.fr currently involves a custom chatbot (VueJS/Html/Css/Php) : an artificial intelligence able to communicate via an instant messaging system.  This system is currently being improved with the help of Accenture to integrate AI and a natural learning processing (NLP) into the solution. 

The Prize would help us developing our platform and enrich our digital tool. The Prize will also help us face the upcoming economical crisis in order to keep supporting young people and especially youths from underprivileged backgrounds in their professional integration. By allowing this transferable program to reach a larger audience, the Prize will help us make soft skill identification and valorisation the new means to ease the youth enter the job market and achieve their career goals.

Soft skills are becoming an imperative in recruitment processes.We think it is also a way to recognize the richness of the life trajectories young people from underprivileged backgrounds often have. Soft skill recognition can hence help these young people face the upcoming economical challenges around the world. 

Jobready offers a program designed specifically for them backgrounds in order to help and support their professional integration. 

Jobready is a mix of online and offline tools that will help youth identify, enhance, evaluate and develop their soft skills so they can access the job market knowing the richness of their backgrounds and how their soft skills are sought after by employers. 

The use of a digital platform, allowing Jobready to reach a significant number of people, and the implementation of workshops in collaboration with local organisations, allowing us to reach those who are furthest from this notion of soft skills, qualify Jobready for the MIT Solver Prize under the “Good Jobs & Inclusive Entrepreneurship” Challenge. 

The Prize will help us face the upcoming economical crisis in order to keep supporting young people and especially youths from underprivileged backgrounds in their professional integration. By allowing this transferable program to reach a larger audience, the Prize will help us make soft skill identification and valorisation the new means to ease the youth enter the job market and achieve their career goals.