CAREERS: A Career Guidance Tool for Student Recruiting

Abstract

The Careers Application for iOS devices helps the School of Informatics and Computing (SOIC) Student Outreach Department provide direction to current high school students for Bachelor's Degree programs and courses offered through SOIC.

With the help of this application, the students can get suggestions about the different program majors available at SOIC that might be suitable for their profile. The app asks the students a series of multiple choice questions. The students select answers as per their interests. Depending on the students' responses, the application calculates suitable degree and program matches, and provides these as suggestions to the student. In addition, potential salary expectations for graduates from these programs is provided.

The app is a combination of the mobile application and a server-based web application. Students create an account using an e-mail address, and log in. A set of eight questions are selected at random from a database, and displayed in multiple choice format. The student's answers are recorded on the device and sent to the server application for storing and processing. An algorithm evaluates the student's interests on dimensions that correspond to the various programs offered through SOIC, and responds with a ranked list, which includes the program name, degree offered, and expected salary levels for graduates in that program. Since the questions are randomly selected, students can try the app repeatedly. Student Outreach personnel will begin using the app during the coming months, and expect to use it to generate interest among high school students, as well as learn more about the interests of incoming students from their responses.