Pathways Resource Library

The Success Index represents a private opinion survey of the American people’s personal definitions of success and the American Dream. It uses tools and methodologies that minimize distortions found in traditional public opinion polls to reveal not only what Americans prioritize most — and least — in a successful life, but also what they believe about other people’s priorities.

This toolkit provides effective messages targeted to key audiences and strategies for dissemination to increase participation in Credit for Prior Learning among adult learners who are pursuing career pathways and CTE programs of study that lead to jobs in in-demand fields.

This resource provides tangible data points on employer attitudes toward Career Technical Education (CTE) and the positive return on investment CTE experiences provide for business and economic growth. Based on a national survey of more than 300 professionals actively involved in hiring decisions in in-demand fields, these new findings demonstrate that employers strongly support and see direct value in CTE. The findings also indicate that employer recognition and support for skills-focused hiring is growing and that employers back a greater public investment in CTE programs.

This playbook is a step-by-step guide to implementing more equitable and effective approaches to employee recruiting, hiring, and advancement by embracing skills-first talent management practices.

To better understand frontline employee perspectives, McKinsey, in collaboration with Cara Plus, conducted separate surveys of frontline employees and managers of frontline employees across the country in March 2022. This article explores frontline employee career advancement in four parts: first, what frontline employees say they need; second, what employers perceive as the career advancement priorities of frontline employees; third, the common barriers to career advancement; and last, how employers can bridge the differences, with a focus on tactical actions to meaningfully improve career advancement outcomes.

The article discusses the growing issue of young Americans aged 18-24 not engaging in college or work, exacerbated by the pandemic. Despite high job vacancies, there's skepticism toward non-college education and job-training programs. The article highlights policy recommendations to integrate workforce training and higher education, stressing that both traditional and non-degree credentials are essential for economic mobility. The purpose is to advocate for a broader, more inclusive approach to postsecondary education and workforce training, aiming to enhance economic opportunities for all.

This is a set of research about how young people form their occupational identities. From 2018-2019, Equitable Futures gathered key insights from qualitative and quantitative research with over 4,000 young people on how they see themselves and the opportunities and challenges they anticipate in pursuing their career and life goals.

As employers seek to revitalize and diversify their talent pipelines, Opportunity@Work offers insights to inform employers’ understanding of where to find Black talent and the skills that Black STARs can bring to their talent pipelines. This report shares three key insights that every employer should know.

The State of the Future U.S. Workforce: Student Ability Report analyzes anonymized data from the YouScience Discovery aptitude-based career guidance assessments taken in U.S. high schools (grades 9 through 12) across all 50 states in 2021. They outline our findings and suggest solutions that address the challenge in a holistic, practical way in this report.