27
September
2018
|
16:31
Asia/Singapore

NUS career+ app empowers students to be ‘career smart’

Powered by an AI engine, the new mobile app helps students customise their learning journeys to develop skills for their dream jobs  

Undergraduate students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) will soon have a simple, convenient and smart tool to help them plan their modules according to their career interests, so that they can acquire the skills needed to land their dream jobs. NUS, in collaboration with JobTech, has developed NUS career+, a unique mobile application that advises students on education planning and career selection. About 2,800 undergraduate students from the NUS School of Computing are the first to experience this app. 

2018-0927 NUS career+.jpg

Jointly developed by NUS and JobTech, NUS career+ is a unique mobile application that provides advice to students on education planning and career selection. Undergraduates at NUS School of Computing are the first to use this new app. 

Professor Ho Teck Hua, NUS Senior Deputy President and Provost, said, “At NUS, students are at the centre of everything we do. We want to help our students pursue their dream careers, and we want them to make smart choices along the way. To do this, education and career planning must go hand in hand. NUS career+ is a unique tool that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to help our students align their learning journeys with their career aspirations. The goal is for every student to acquire highly coveted skills that would give an advantage in getting a dream job upon graduation.” 

The NUS career+ app generates smart module recommendations that are customised for each student based on their career interests and academic curriculum. It also helps students prioritise their academic modules so that they acquire highly sought-after skills in their chosen career domains, based on real-time analysis of skills demanded in the job market. 

Available on both iOS and Android platforms, the NUS career+ app makes use of an AI engine called Career Recommendation & Planning Engine (CRePE) that has jointly been developed by the NUS Department of Computer Science and JobTech. The development of the AI engine is supported by AI Singapore under its 100 Experiments initiative. NUS provided additional funding to develop the app based on the AI engine for education planning and career advice.

Smart tool to boost students’ career readiness

The NUS career+ app provides advice to students in three ways:

  • informs students about possible career domains for the academic degrees they are pursuing
  • recommends NUS modules to students based on their preferred career domains
  • recommends job opportunities based on the skills that students have acquired from the NUS modules taken to date

After downloading the NUS career+ app, students can log in to it with their NUS student email and password. The app automatically extracts and analyses the student’s academic record and generates a personalised skills profile. From a list of pre-generated career domains, which will evolve based on the latest market trends, students can select up to three career domains according to their interests. 

Based on each student’s skills profile and specified career domains, a ‘Career Readiness’ progress bar will be generated for each career domain selected by the student. Students can refer to the progress bar for an indication of how ready they are to be employed in the career domains that they are interested in. For instance, a short progress bar for a particular career domain means that the student needs to take more relevant modules to close the skills gap for jobs in that field. Conversely, a student with a long progress bar for a specific career specialisation will be more prepared for job opportunities in that field. 

The NUS career+ app then taps into real-time data insights from the Singapore job market to offer advice on module selection and job opportunities, taking into consideration a student’s unique skills profile and career interests. 

In addition, the app enables students to track their skills acquisition journey by automatically consolidating skills acquired from past academic modules taken. Students can also add new skills acquired from activities and experiences outside of the classroom. 

Mr Ang Wee Tiong, JobTech Co-founder & Technology Lead, said, “At JobTech, our AI engine analyses millions of online job postings daily, to learn and understand the skills demand of the fast-changing labour market. We are honoured to partner with NUS to push the boundaries of AI and empower students to design better learning journeys with data insights. NUS career+ will help students gain a head start in the job market by recommending to them modules to bridge skill gaps and providing job recommendations based on their unique skills and interest profiles.”

More users and new features 

The NUS career+ app will be made available, in phases, to undergraduate students in other NUS faculties and schools, and eventually to NUS alumni pursuing Continuing Education and Training (CET) courses at NUS. Plans are also underway to develop a more advanced version of the app to facilitate job applications by automatically generating a skills-based resume that is customised to each student and each job application. 

In addition, the NUS career+ app also complements and enhances the comprehensive career resources and services that are currently available to NUS students. The NUS Centre for Future-ready Graduates, for instance, runs career preparation courses, provides career advice and organises career events for NUS students. In addition, faculty-based career advisors also guide students on their personal and career development.