Career Maps: A deeper dive into powering up the real routes through industries
Where many see a pure skills-matching problem, we also see a support and framing problem. Career maps should reconnect people to why they work, not just where.
By Leah Lykins
How can we effectively connect workers to growing industries?
Career maps are how we help workers, employers, and workforce boards see the real routes through industries. Not the theoretical ones or the ones built off of the average of all the information. Career Maps make the specific and complicated invisible ladders visible, but most importantly increase the chance someone will move from intent to action. It’s not enough to show good, industry-vetted data. How it’s done matters.
We design these maps with partners like Tacoma’s Workforce Central and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) to close the gap between an absolute beginner and a confident first or next step in a specialized, and often quite unfamiliar, field.
Why this matters in 2025 and beyond
According to SHRM’s 2025 Talent Trends, ~69% of organizations report that recruiting full-time employees is difficult. Entire sectors are facing massive upcoming demand with a large risk of unfilled roles. Half of the U.S. manufacturing sector is short-handed, the solar workforce is running out of energy, healthcare worker shortages are in critical condition, the math isn’t mathing for accounting pipelines, semiconductor recruitment is half-charged, and the pull toward quantum careers is too weak.
Even experts find specialized industries hard to navigate. Growth roles aren’t obvious, career ladders are messy, and the information ecosystem is more tangled than ever. Employers, educators, and regional boards struggle to align and motivate towards the real training routes workers can act on.
As humans working with humans working with workforce technology (you read that right), we suspect that solving this requires more than closing informational gaps or funding another AI career coaching bot. Where many see an information and guidance gap, we see a behavioral science and honesty gap.
A co-created, human-centered solution
Where many see a pure skills-matching problem, we also see a support and framing problem. Career maps should reconnect people to why they work, not just where.
By working hand-in-hand with regional and industry partners, we create visual, data-driven, and emotionally resonant maps that help workers picture a believable and achievable path forward. For the employers on the other side, they get to better retain their talent and motivate new entrants. For us, we get to learn from much more specialized and niche career contexts than what’s typically out there in large aggregated data pipelines.
The four directions of effective career mapping
Across those industry contexts we were working with, we’ve identified what we’re calling our north, east, south, and west of modern career mapping: the compass points organizations need to orient their efforts.
True North: Beliefs & Belonging
“Stigmas and mental models still need busting.”
North is orientation: how people see themselves in relation to work. Persistent stigmas — trades seen as “dirty,” cybersecurity as a “boys’ club” — keep whole fields invisible. People aren’t naïve. We’ve all seen discrimination, exploitation, and unlivable wages. Without real stories to counterbalance the most persistent stigmas, it’s natural to assume those patterns are the rule. And make no mistake: Gen Z is absorbing these mental models just as much as the rest of us. How might we transform pessimism and exclusion into optimism and belonging?
East: Illuminating the path forward
“The real way up is messy.”
East is the sunrise: what’s ahead. Workers want to know if a first job leads anywhere, but advancement is rarely linear. Titles differ, skills shift, and the next rung isn’t obvious. East reminds us to illuminate authentic, motivating pathways that reflect how growth really happens. This lack of visibility fuels churn and prevents newcomers: why stay or join if you can’t see your future? So, how might we communicate ladders of reality and make them motivating from the very first rung?
South: Places to Go
“Where to go from here is confusing.”
South is motion: the journey itself. Opportunities like accelerated training, paid apprenticeships, and new local programs exist but are hard to find or trust. The last mile between intention and action remains murky. South is where we live at WhereWeGo: building tools that close that gap.
West - The shadow of the present
“Life is in the way.”
West is the setting sun: where today casts its longest shadows. Even when interest and opportunity align, real-life barriers – such as childcare, transportation, or scheduling – can dim the light ahead. These challenges aren’t about motivation but feasibility. There’s no silver bullet for inaccessible childcare or missing bus routes, but there are helping hands and regional, industry, and employer-level supports waiting to be found. Workers shouldn’t have to choose between family, stability, and advancement. West calls us to surface the supports that can lift people out of the shadow of circumstance and make progress possible.
What we are not saying.
We are not claiming career maps alone will “solve the talent shortage.” The challenges are too complex. It will take the full toolbox of strategies, deployed across the ecosystem.
We are not telling others “there is a person for every job” in every sector or region. There may not be—yet. But the odds of finding the right match shrink dramatically when we miss out on the solutions that do resonate and facilitate action.
We are not saying this is simply a “skills-matching tool.” Skills absolutely matter: knowing them, building them, and pursuing them over a lifetime. But the evidence shows that skills grow fastest when people want to grow them.
Career maps are built on that belief: desire fuels development. So let’s start there, make where to go from there crystal clear, and end somewhere new.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Further Reading:
- US Manufacturing --> Investopedia: Why Half Of The New US Manufacturing Jobs in the Next Decade Could Go Unfilled - "New Study Shows That 3.8 Million New Jobs Could Be Needed By 2033"
- Solar Energy --> Taylor Hopkinson: US solar report 2025: Building a resilient workforce for America’s energy transition - "America’s solar industry has demonstrated remarkable growth and resilience. But the early withdrawal of federal support for renewables projects in mid-2025 creates a compressed 15-month runway for new solar facilities, placing further pressure on the already-stretched workforce. Here, we outline a proposal for managing workforce volatility in America’s solar industry."
- Healthcare --> American Hospital Association: 5 Health Care Workforce Shortage Takeaways for 2028 - "Expect a shortage of about 100,000 critical health care workers by 2028."
- Financial Services -> AACSB: Rebuilding the Pipeline for Accounting Talent - "Fewer students are choosing accounting careers. We must show them that accountants aren’t just number crunchers—they are vital to the future of business."
- Semiconductors --> Deloitte: The global semiconductor talent shortage - "By 2030, more than one million additional skilled workers will be needed to meet demand in the semiconductor industry."