Draft Discussion Paper – Modernizing CareerOneStop for the AI Era

Response to the Request for Information on Modernizing CareerOneStop

To be submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (once feedback is incorporated)

Please provide feedback using this form.

Modernizing Human Capability Infrastructure for the AI Era

The purpose of CareerOneStop should no longer be simply helping people find jobs. It should be helping people understand, develop, and communicate their capabilities throughout their lives.

CareerOneStop has long served as the federal government’s primary destination for career exploration, labor market information, and workforce resources. Millions of Americans have relied upon it to learn about occupations, identify training opportunities, explore career pathways, and connect with workforce services.

We strongly support the Department’s effort to modernize CareerOneStop.

We believe, however, that the opportunity before the Department is significantly larger than redesigning a website or adding new features.

Artificial intelligence is changing not only how work is performed, but how individuals navigate careers. Workers will increasingly need to move between occupations, continuously develop new capabilities, and demonstrate what they know and can do across many different educational institutions, employers, workforce programs, and technology platforms.

CareerOneStop can become the nation’s trusted public infrastructure for that journey.

Rather than functioning solely as a destination where individuals receive information, CareerOneStop should become the federal government’s reference implementation for helping people build, maintain, and use portable representations of their human capability.

I. Shift From Delivering Information to Building Understanding

Today’s workforce systems place an extraordinary burden on individuals.

People are expected to remember every credential they have earned, every skill they have developed, every certification they have completed, every job they have held, every project they have delivered, and every experience that may be relevant to future opportunity.

They are then expected to translate that information into resumes, applications, and profiles tailored to every new workforce system they encounter.

This approach does not scale.

Modern workforce infrastructure should progressively reduce the burden placed upon individuals by allowing trusted institutions to contribute verified information directly to an individual’s career record.

When colleges issue digital credentials, employers verify employment records, licensing agencies publish certifications, workforce programs document completions, and other trusted organizations contribute evidence of learning and work, individuals no longer bear sole responsibility for reconstructing their qualifications from memory.

The result is not simply greater convenience. It is a more accurate, more complete, and more trustworthy understanding of human capability.

II. Build Upon Learning and Employment Record Infrastructure

The past several years have seen substantial national investment in Learning and Employment Records (LERs), open credential standards, and interoperable workforce data models. CareerOneStop should build upon this foundation rather than creating an independent approach to representing people.

Learning and Employment Records enable trusted organizations to issue machine-readable records describing learning, employment, credentials, licenses, assessments, military service, and other career-relevant accomplishments.

Unlike traditional resumes, these records are structured, portable, and accompanied by rich metadata that allows intelligent systems to understand not simply that an achievement exists, but who issued it, when it was earned, how it was validated, and what evidence supports it.

Equally important, Learning and Employment Records introduce validated and verifiable information into workforce decision making. As artificial intelligence increasingly assists with matching, guidance, and hiring, trustworthy evidence becomes significantly more valuable than self-reported claims alone.

CareerOneStop should embrace these standards as foundational public infrastructure rather than treating them as emerging technologies.

III. Enable Individuals to Build a Trusted Career Profile

Verified records alone are not enough to represent a person.

Many of the capabilities that matter most are developed through work experience, caregiving, military service, independent learning, community engagement, entrepreneurship, and countless other experiences that may never result in a formal credential.

For this reason, CareerOneStop should support a portable Trusted Career Profile that complements Learning and Employment Records. The Trusted Career Profile data standard, from HR Open Standards, provides a structured representation of the individual that grows throughout a lifetime.

As individuals interact with CareerOneStop, workforce agencies, educational institutions, talent marketplaces, employers, and other participating systems, each organization can contribute through guided inquiry. Rather than repeatedly asking people to start over, systems progressively help individuals describe additional experiences, capabilities, goals, interests, preferences, and evidence relevant to their journey.

Every interaction leaves the person with a richer understanding of themselves. Rather than trapping that understanding inside individual platforms, the Trusted Career Profile allows it to move with the individual.

CareerOneStop should become the federal government’s reference implementation demonstrating how individuals can aggregate verified Learning and Employment Records together with progressively enriched personal information into a portable, interoperable profile they own and control.

IV. Create a National Network of Interoperable Opportunity

The greatest value of CareerOneStop is not what happens within CareerOneStop itself.

Its greatest value is what becomes possible across the broader workforce ecosystem.

Individuals should be able to bring their Learning and Employment Records and Trusted Career Profile into CareerOneStop, receive guidance, identify new opportunities, enrich their profile through additional inquiry, and then carry that enhanced profile into other participating systems without losing information or beginning again.

• A learner should be able to move seamlessly from CareerOneStop into a state workforce talent marketplace powered by Learning and Employment Record standards.
• An employer should be able to receive richer, more trustworthy information about applicants.
• Educational institutions should be able to identify capability gaps and recommend targeted learning.
• State workforce agencies should be able to deliver more personalized services while reducing repetitive intake processes.
• Private sector platforms should be able to participate using the same open standards rather than requiring proprietary integrations.

CareerOneStop should not become another destination competing with existing workforce platforms. It should become the catalyst that enables them to work together.

Conclusion

CareerOneStop has an opportunity to become far more than the federal government’s career information website.

It can become the nation’s reference implementation for portable human capability.

By adopting Learning and Employment Record standards, supporting interoperable Trusted Career Profiles, and enabling individuals to carry enriched representations of themselves across workforce systems, CareerOneStop can reduce friction, improve workforce mobility, strengthen AI-enabled guidance, and accelerate interoperability throughout the national workforce ecosystem.

Just as O*NET has become the nation’s trusted representation of work, CareerOneStop can become the nation’s trusted reference implementation for representing and advancing human capability.