WikiJobs: Algorithm Reentry for Career Gaps

70% of workers in the U.S. have employment gaps on their resume (Yahoo Finance). Within this percentile, a substantial number of citizens that have been out of work are mothers who spent ~15 years on average raising children. The majority of these mothers interviewed in a survey conducted by Voice at the Table (98%) wished to reenter the workforce. The study also detailed the experiences of women working at FTSE100 companies relative to their male peers while having the responsibility of taking care of children. The results were not ideal. The overwhelming majority of women said that their workspace made it difficult for them to allocate proper attention to their children which consequently leads—in many cases but not all—to leaving the workforce then struggling to reenter. Another demographic within the approximately 70% of workers that have employment gaps are incarcerated citizens seeking to reenter the workforce after serving their jail sentence. Without a proper platform to provide an up-skilling timeline, it can be incredibly difficult to leverage the time away from work. As the New York Times claims, over 60% of incarcerated citizens go jobless one year after leaving the workforce—providing significant economic barrier.

WikiJobs is an online SaaS platform that leverages advanced technological algorithms, artificial intelligence, and web-scraping to provide custom reentry plans for those with lengthy career gaps. We integrate the development of custom neural networks and transformer models to provide job entry timelines.

After you visit wikijob.org, you will be prompted to sign in or create an account. This will allows for the user to store their work experience, education level, and all customizable characteristics available. Once signed in (2FA) to your account there will be a tab for "job matching." In this tab, the user will enter in their goals, circumstances, how long they have been out of work, and which work conditions they prefer (ex: remote working, low commute time, etc). Afterwards, our technology will power a "match-based" result that mirrors QuestBridge's ranking system where the user can rank their preferences and sort by hiring probability, salary, and other options. Your matches are the fair-chance companies that most support your interests and circumstances according to our sorting algorithms. Next, the user will sort from the match catalog, select a job, and be provided with a customized reentry timeline for that specific job.

Link to Demo Here

WikiJobs seeks to improve the lives of American citizen who have been out of work due to extenuating circumstances for a significant amount of time (ex: assisting those who were previously incarcerated or those who have raised children as a caretaker)

Although the platform is open-access, we work with reentry coalitions for separate communities in order to meet the needs of everyone properly. Our community provides the re-skill and up-skill platform necessary for reentering the work force given your customized timeline. After using the platform, given our demo, users saw a 84% success rate in either up-skilling or finding job access with over 12,000 back-link clicks to applications after completing the timeline. We aim encourage economic development by employing as many people as possible regardless of background; this includes cross-sector employment (ex: classical musician who would like to up-skill to become a data analyst). This should also provide the user with companies that are likely to align their employee benefit needs (insurance, school, etc).

Hey all, I'm Finn Järvi, the founder at WikiJobs by the Institute for Youth in Policy. Growing up in a family of classically trained musicians, I never understood the difficulty in attempting a career switch until immigrating to the United States. As a child, my parents needed to sustain themselves as well as continue their careers. However, since no viable options existed at the time for cross-sector up-skilling, it was always difficult to find a higher paying career to support children with. Like in many large families, the role of the caretaker became the primary job. When it was time to enter the work force again, difficulty arrived for that "family of musicians." In order to strengthen the voices of those who wish to re-enter in a cross-sector industry, I created WikiJob.Org. My personal upbringing in a family of classically trained musicians who needed to switch careers after immigration fuels my close-knit association and drive for innovative employment matching. 

The Institute for Youth in Policy (YIP) is an organization that accelerates civic engagement by creating innovative policy/social solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. This includes authoring policy research amassing over 1,500 publications, speaking to several thousand teachers at the College Board conference (partnership), and hosting the most selective civic related student fellowship in the nation (6-8% acceptance rate) graduating over 550 fellows with over 8,000 applicants per season producing 1,000+ capstone projects for new real world solutions. YIP has reached over 10,000,000 people and operates in every U.S. state. By developing solutions such as WikiJobs, Humanity Bridged, and the Branden Center (a center focusing on foreign affairs in Asia), YIP has expanded to over 50 countries around the globe. 

We started with Humanity Bridged, an online platform using a globe UI to track over 1.4 million active work sites linking over 10,000 users with work access in approximately 200 countries. The website received endorsement backing from Miami-Dade County, Florida. Later, we concluded that this demo would provide us the footing to launch WikiJobs, a platform that addresses large employment gaps. 

Partners: Google for Nonprofits, College Board, Stanford, Harvard, Oliver Wyman, and Charity Navigator.

yipinstitute.org (Parent Website)

wikijob.org (Solution Website)

https://humanitybridge.love/ (Pre-Demo Trial Website)

We combine "circumstance" with "pathway". 

Leveraging artificial intelligence and transformer models, we're able to create a customizable system framework for anyone---regardless of background. Our system is innovative because rather than just providing the platform to apply for the job (LinkedIn) or the means of earning certificates to up-skill for the job (Coursera), we provide the user with a timeline to up-skill and later provide the platform to apply to the job that picks the user! Our match system is computationally considerate of the user's circumstance and pairs them with a fair-chance employer that is likely to hire them if they undergo the action-plan PDF provided to them after entering in all the necessary information. Our platform combines QuestBridge, Coursera, and Linkedin to become the perfect artificially integrated blend catalog for new employment. Even though we've already garnered cross-sector partnerships with Google, Stanford, and Oliver Wyman, we still believe MIT Solve's Truist Foundation mentorship could provide us with the necessarily medium to break the barrier when entering the work force again. 

Impact Goals

1. Job access provided to over 30,000 people via our website

2. Number of impressions increased from 10,000,000 to 15,000,000

3. Increased partnership network (establish cross-sector agreements)

4. Get to know our community via phones calls, emails, and check-ins

5. Meeting the demographic most impacted (incarcerated and caretakers)

Indicators

1. High Rates of Engagement among Mid-Aged Professionals

2. Average Time Spent on the Platformwithout Leave

3. Number of Registered Users with Accounts 

4. Number of Back-Link Clicks to Matched Job Catalog 

5. Recurrent Visitor Metrics

6. Increased Engagement in Surveys 

1. Cash Hilinski, Co-Founder and CTO at WikiJobs

2. Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, CTO at WikiJobs

3. Paul Kramer, Chief Executive Officer at YIP

4. Finn Järvi - Executive Vice President at YIP and Co-Founder at WikiJobs

Since 2023 we've been developing what is now known as WikiJobs. Our platform started as "Humanity Bridged" which used an interactive globe interface to track work sites and connect over 10,000 users with them. 

We renamed it WikiJobs and changed our technological approach (still maintaining the globe UI) in January, 2024. 

The Institute for Youth in Policy is open-access. This means that anyone, anywhere, regardless of gender, sexuality, or race can use the platform. We also employ from over 50 countries and all 50 U.S. states with strict policies against discriminatory admit procedure and programs. We work to create an inclusive dialog by authoring for UNESCO's inclusive policy center. Whenever it is possible, YIP provides it's members with the most inclusive and supportive atmosphere possible. 

Overview

Our business model is dynamic and does not require much funding relative to platforms like LinkedIn as it is a nonprofit reentry initiative. WikiJobs effectively combines Coursera and Linkedin to streamline the process of getting a job faster. The rate at which one re-enters the workforce significantly impacts the way that future employers may look at their application. An unskilled worker going into a cross-sector field is less likely to be employed. However, this model leverages low-cost with nonprofit funding in order to retain a platform that connects it's users with high probability match options for employment with fair-chance companies in the catalog. 

Goals by 2026

• Connect 30,000 users with new employers and verify their employed status

• Improve technological infrastructure of the online platform and SaaS

• Make WikiJobs a downloadable app on the app store providing job access

• Up-skill 100,000+ people for new cross-sector employment areas 

Our primary customers/users to start will be previously incarcerated reentrants and caretakers as these demographics are typically out of work for several years at a time (15 on average). This will allow us to start with a smaller market and customize our interface to be more adaptable with our criteria for matching procedure. 

All money is reinvested back into the Institute for Youth in Policy to fund its missions and initiatives. YIP does not operate as a high-cost organization and often relies on grant funding, donations, and partnerships. The primary costs of the organization are also frequently cost consistent. Web development prices, fellowship expenses, and other operational necessities are low-cost and budgeted. We aim to sustain our model via grant funding, donations, partnership agreements, and membership subscription for our newsletter and new beta features access. Nevertheless, we aim to maintain a low-cost model and maintain a completely free to use platform. So far, we've garnered partnerships with College Board, Oliver Wyman, Stanford University, MIT's Office of Innovation, Google, Harvard University, Harvard Undergraduate Law Review, Cambridge University, University of Oxford, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, Activote, CivXNow, BridgeUSA, Charity Navigator, Brown University, Sici, Asian America Forward, and others. All funding is provided via our campaigns, givebutter links, and partnerships.  

The Truist Foundation's Inspire Awards will drastically increase the rate at which we can produce new solutions. When we launched WikiJob.Org, we aimed to provide job access to those who didn't have access to a streamlined customizable option. Now, we aim to incorporate a more dynamic matching system that allows for more cross-sector partnerships and improvements to our job timeline system to increase the rate at which users can get hired. We believe that with the funding and support of MIT Solve's Truist Foundation Inspire Awards, we can bring job access to the 242 million Americans that have taken leave from their career for an extended period of time. By starting small, receiving expert mentorship, and adequate funding, we believe that the Institute for Youth in Policy, can create the most effective means of up-skilling mid-aged professionals for new careers and increased access to customizable opportunity.