USER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY AND DISCOVERY

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis is a subset of the broader area of market research and uses its techniques and concepts to understand customer needs and market drivers.

Assessing MyPACE for Job Corps

MyPACE was a web-based career navigation platform designed and developed by Jobs for the Future to support the Job Corps program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor. The platform provided students and instructors with tools and information to guide career exploration and preparation for young adults facing barriers to education and employment.

Product Goal

Assess how well the MyPACE platform aligns with the evolving career navigation and training landscape—and identify opportunities to strengthen its relevance, effectiveness, and future readiness.

My Role

UX researcher and strategist responsible for competitive and landscape analysis, synthesis of findings, and recommendations to inform product direction for Job Corps leadership and the MyPACE platform team.

Key Insights

MyPACE cannot be meaningfully evaluated through direct market comparison alone due to the unique population and program model of Job Corps.

Instead, assessing MyPACE through a generational and experience-expectation lens surfaced clearer opportunities. Emerging career navigation tools are increasingly designed around personalization, interactivity, and authentic digital experiences—expectations shared by the upcoming MyPACE user base, including Gen Alpha.

This reframed the analysis from “Who is MyPACE competing with?” to “How are career tools evolving to meet the expectations of the next generation of users?”

Impact

Provided a more realistic and defensible evaluation framework for MyPACE
Identified opportunity areas aligned with generational expectations rather than forced comparisons
Informed proposed next steps for platform evolution and future investment decisions

My Challenge

Conduct a competitive and landscape analysis of the MyPACE platform within a six-week window—despite the absence of true market comparables for the Job Corps program.

Users

Primary audiences: Job Corps program leaders, MyPace platform leaders.
End users impacted: Job Corps students and instructors.

Constraints

Six-week timeline
Highly specialized program model
Limited direct market equivalents

My Process

Built foundational understanding of the Job Corps program, including its history, target population, and outcomes
Partnered closely with the MyPACE platform team through demos, documentation review, and ongoing Q&A
Conducted desktop research using AI-assisted tools to identify trends and players in career navigation and training
Evaluated tools through a generational lens to compare experience patterns rather than feature parity
Synthesized findings and documented recommendations and proposed next steps for stakeholders