Career Readiness Works Best When It Starts in the Classroom
New programs have to prove they lead somewhere. Rize designs every course around in-demand skills, and MyCareer shows students exactly how their studies connect to a career.
Students enroll expecting college to lead to a career, but too few can clearly see how one gets them to the other.
Only 54% of employers say colleges are graduating students with the skills their organizations need. Graduates feel the gap too: 48% of recent grads say they feel unprepared to apply for entry-level jobs in their field.
Students want career preparation built into their curriculum. According to a recent study, 74% say career pathways and salary outcomes would be valuable in their degree plans, yet only 4% say their institution provides that information.
Colleges already work hard to prepare students for what’s next. We built MyCareer to strengthen this work and help every student see a return on their education. When students can see how what they’re learning translates directly into career opportunities, they’re more engaged, more likely to complete their coursework, and more confident in their professional futures. Our long-term goal is for every student in a Rize-powered course to leave college having landed their dream job.
Watch the Webinar
On October 6, Tom O'Shea and Zak Sharif from Rize's product team walked through MyCareer live. Check out the recording below and keep reading to discover how MyCareer connects coursework directly to careers.
Why Career Prep Belongs Inside the Course
Most career tools sit outside the classroom, and most students never find them. Only about 10% of students engage with self-serve career prep tools.
That’s a missed opportunity, because early career planning pays off. In one study, students who built a career action plan in their first year saw 8.8 points higher one-year retention and 15 points higher four-year graduation rates than students who didn’t.
Rize flips that model by building career preparation into the courses themselves, so every student gets it, not just the 10% who go looking.
What is MyCareer?
MyCareer is a comprehensive career readiness platform designed to enhance Rize curriculum and equip students with the tools needed to get a job they’ll love after graduating. It supports students across the full career preparation journey through four core features.
1. Career exploration. Students browse 900+ careers, powered by Lightcast, with average starting salaries, the number of available jobs nationwide, and the skills each entry-level role requires. A short interest assessment suggests careers based on what students already enjoy doing. Students set a career target, even if they're undecided, and compare how ready they are for one career versus another. They're encouraged to change their target anytime as they learn more.
2. Skill development. Assignments in Rize-powered courses are tagged with the professional skills they build. Students earn Skill XP (Skill Experience) based on how well they do, and their proficiency in each skill rises as they go. A skills dashboard shows their progress across every Rize course they've taken.
3. Progress tracking. Twenty core career milestones, curated alongside dozens of advisors, guide students from meeting with on-campus career services and building a resume to applying for internships and full-time roles. Milestones adjust to each student's goals and expected graduation date. A Career Readiness Score (CRS) from 0 to 100 combines skill progress and milestones, and gives each student a personalized recommendation for what to do next.
4. Course planning. Students plan future semesters with their career in mind. They can browse Rize-powered courses, add their on-campus courses, and see how the plan will move their Career Readiness Score. Each completed plan is emailed to the student with a nudge to bring it to their next advising meeting.
How Rize-Powered Courses Connect to Jobs
Employers are increasingly hiring for skills, not just degrees. About 70% now use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles. That makes it critical for students to know which skills they’re building, and to be able to show them. Every skill students see in MyCareer traces back to how Rize designs its courses.
- Programs start from outcomes. Rize's instructional design team works backward from the roles that await graduates, in collaboration with a curriculum committee and subject matter experts in the field.
- Courses teach in-demand skills. Instructional designers cross-reference Lightcast labor market data to decide which professional skills each course should build. The same skills recur across a program, so a student in one of the 10 to 12 courses in a computer science program keeps strengthening them course over course.
- Assignments and rubrics are mapped to skills. Each skill is assessed through specific assignments and their rubrics, so skill progress in MyCareer reflects real, graded work.
The result: as students complete their coursework, they build a verifiable portfolio that shows what they can do, not just which courses they took.
The Results So Far
In a Fall 2025 A/B test, we compared 759 students with access to MyCareer against 718 students in the same courses without it, surveying both groups at mid-semester and again at the end. We’ve observed real improvement in career readiness from MyCareer students.
All three gains were statistically significant. The last one stands out: both groups took the same courses, with the same assignments. The only difference was that MyCareer showed students how the skills they were learning connected to their own career goal, and that visibility alone made them value the same coursework more.
Students who use MyCareer heavily were also 8 percentage points more likely to continue to their next semester of Rize-powered courses.
Students describe the difference in their own words:
"The MyCareer section [is my favorite part of the course]. That whole thing is a blessing, honestly." - Senior, Reinhardt University
"My favorite thing about the course was how rewarding all the assignments were. Every week… they helped me towards my career." - Junior, Adrian College
"[MyCareer] gives a practical timeline that makes us feel less anxious about being prepared for things we need to do to get a job post graduation." - Freshman, Concordia University-Saint Paul
How Partners Can Use MyCareer Today
MyCareer works best when advisors and career services teams make it part of their conversations with students. Some students already pull up their MyCareer profile in advising and career services meetings, so they arrive with a career goal, a snapshot of their skills and a course plan instead of starting from square one. Encourage your advisors, career services team and faculty to ask for it.
What's Next?
Students can already explore careers, build skills and track their readiness in MyCareer. The next step is connecting them to employers.
New-grad hiring has grown more uncertain, yet mid-sized and regional employers still struggle to find verifiably qualified talent. Because Rize maps assignments and projects to professional skills, students build a portfolio that proves what they can do.
Rize has started early conversations with regional employers to connect students, with their permission, to job opportunities based on those proven skills.
Frequently Asked Questions
See MyCareer in Action
Whether you’re bringing MyCareer to your advisors and career services team or exploring a Rize partnership, we’d love to walk you through it.
Book a demo to learn how launching Rize programs unlocks MyCareer →
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Madison is passionate about working at Rize because she believes higher education is at an inflection point and something needs to change to make it a mutually beneficial experience for both students and colleges. She feels it’s a privilege to help an innovative company in this space grow, especially in a role that encourages her to blend her marketing and UX backgrounds. Outside of work, Madison enjoys designing jewelry, taking beach trips with her family, and going on walks and runs with friends around NYC.
Career Readiness Works Best When It Starts in the Classroom
New programs have to prove they lead somewhere. Rize designs every course around in-demand skills, and MyCareer shows students exactly how their studies connect to a career.
Students enroll expecting college to lead to a career, but too few can clearly see how one gets them to the other.
Only 54% of employers say colleges are graduating students with the skills their organizations need. Graduates feel the gap too: 48% of recent grads say they feel unprepared to apply for entry-level jobs in their field.
Students want career preparation built into their curriculum. According to a recent study, 74% say career pathways and salary outcomes would be valuable in their degree plans, yet only 4% say their institution provides that information.
Colleges already work hard to prepare students for what’s next. We built MyCareer to strengthen this work and help every student see a return on their education. When students can see how what they’re learning translates directly into career opportunities, they’re more engaged, more likely to complete their coursework, and more confident in their professional futures. Our long-term goal is for every student in a Rize-powered course to leave college having landed their dream job.
Watch the Webinar
On October 6, Tom O'Shea and Zak Sharif from Rize's product team walked through MyCareer live. Check out the recording below and keep reading to discover how MyCareer connects coursework directly to careers.
Why Career Prep Belongs Inside the Course
Most career tools sit outside the classroom, and most students never find them. Only about 10% of students engage with self-serve career prep tools.
That’s a missed opportunity, because early career planning pays off. In one study, students who built a career action plan in their first year saw 8.8 points higher one-year retention and 15 points higher four-year graduation rates than students who didn’t.
Rize flips that model by building career preparation into the courses themselves, so every student gets it, not just the 10% who go looking.
What is MyCareer?
MyCareer is a comprehensive career readiness platform designed to enhance Rize curriculum and equip students with the tools needed to get a job they’ll love after graduating. It supports students across the full career preparation journey through four core features.
1. Career exploration. Students browse 900+ careers, powered by Lightcast, with average starting salaries, the number of available jobs nationwide, and the skills each entry-level role requires. A short interest assessment suggests careers based on what students already enjoy doing. Students set a career target, even if they're undecided, and compare how ready they are for one career versus another. They're encouraged to change their target anytime as they learn more.
2. Skill development. Assignments in Rize-powered courses are tagged with the professional skills they build. Students earn Skill XP (Skill Experience) based on how well they do, and their proficiency in each skill rises as they go. A skills dashboard shows their progress across every Rize course they've taken.
3. Progress tracking. Twenty core career milestones, curated alongside dozens of advisors, guide students from meeting with on-campus career services and building a resume to applying for internships and full-time roles. Milestones adjust to each student's goals and expected graduation date. A Career Readiness Score (CRS) from 0 to 100 combines skill progress and milestones, and gives each student a personalized recommendation for what to do next.
4. Course planning. Students plan future semesters with their career in mind. They can browse Rize-powered courses, add their on-campus courses, and see how the plan will move their Career Readiness Score. Each completed plan is emailed to the student with a nudge to bring it to their next advising meeting.
How Rize-Powered Courses Connect to Jobs
Employers are increasingly hiring for skills, not just degrees. About 70% now use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles. That makes it critical for students to know which skills they’re building, and to be able to show them. Every skill students see in MyCareer traces back to how Rize designs its courses.
- Programs start from outcomes. Rize's instructional design team works backward from the roles that await graduates, in collaboration with a curriculum committee and subject matter experts in the field.
- Courses teach in-demand skills. Instructional designers cross-reference Lightcast labor market data to decide which professional skills each course should build. The same skills recur across a program, so a student in one of the 10 to 12 courses in a computer science program keeps strengthening them course over course.
- Assignments and rubrics are mapped to skills. Each skill is assessed through specific assignments and their rubrics, so skill progress in MyCareer reflects real, graded work.
The result: as students complete their coursework, they build a verifiable portfolio that shows what they can do, not just which courses they took.
The Results So Far
In a Fall 2025 A/B test, we compared 759 students with access to MyCareer against 718 students in the same courses without it, surveying both groups at mid-semester and again at the end. We’ve observed real improvement in career readiness from MyCareer students.
All three gains were statistically significant. The last one stands out: both groups took the same courses, with the same assignments. The only difference was that MyCareer showed students how the skills they were learning connected to their own career goal, and that visibility alone made them value the same coursework more.
Students who use MyCareer heavily were also 8 percentage points more likely to continue to their next semester of Rize-powered courses.
Students describe the difference in their own words:
"The MyCareer section [is my favorite part of the course]. That whole thing is a blessing, honestly." - Senior, Reinhardt University
"My favorite thing about the course was how rewarding all the assignments were. Every week… they helped me towards my career." - Junior, Adrian College
"[MyCareer] gives a practical timeline that makes us feel less anxious about being prepared for things we need to do to get a job post graduation." - Freshman, Concordia University-Saint Paul
How Partners Can Use MyCareer Today
MyCareer works best when advisors and career services teams make it part of their conversations with students. Some students already pull up their MyCareer profile in advising and career services meetings, so they arrive with a career goal, a snapshot of their skills and a course plan instead of starting from square one. Encourage your advisors, career services team and faculty to ask for it.
What's Next?
Students can already explore careers, build skills and track their readiness in MyCareer. The next step is connecting them to employers.
New-grad hiring has grown more uncertain, yet mid-sized and regional employers still struggle to find verifiably qualified talent. Because Rize maps assignments and projects to professional skills, students build a portfolio that proves what they can do.
Rize has started early conversations with regional employers to connect students, with their permission, to job opportunities based on those proven skills.
Frequently Asked Questions
See MyCareer in Action
Whether you’re bringing MyCareer to your advisors and career services team or exploring a Rize partnership, we’d love to walk you through it.
Book a demo to learn how launching Rize programs unlocks MyCareer →
Madison is passionate about working at Rize because she believes higher education is at an inflection point and something needs to change to make it a mutually beneficial experience for both students and colleges. She feels it’s a privilege to help an innovative company in this space grow, especially in a role that encourages her to blend her marketing and UX backgrounds. Outside of work, Madison enjoys designing jewelry, taking beach trips with her family, and going on walks and runs with friends around NYC.
