A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Reimagining career services using Artificial Intelligence

April 28, 2025

Alexander Holmes

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming career guidance and is reshaping how students, professionals and employers navigate an increasingly complex job market. In Northern Ireland, this digital revolution presents both unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the Careers Service. This short blog article explores how AI could improve career guidance, addressing existing barriers, and creating more responsive, personalised support for job seekers across all age groups.

Bridging Northern Ireland’s skills imbalance through more accessible career services

The OECD defines career guidance as ‘services intended to assist people, of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers’ and ‘a fundamental policy lever to help adults successfully navigate a constantly evolving labour market through advice and information on job and training opportunities’. The Department for the Economy has laid out its ‘vision for the economy’, with a focus on improving skills in areas of innovation, such as in agri-tech, life sciences and digital technology. The efficiency and effectiveness of the Careers Service will be of importance to recruit and maintain a skilled workforce capable of supporting an economy like Northern Ireland and to mitigate fears of a brain drain by helping people find satisfying and rewarding work. Recently, the Finance Minister has highlighted the importance of the Careers Service to Northern Ireland’s economy through support for the Valuing Careers campaign to raise the profile of the Careers Service.

In 2020, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported that Northern Ireland already suffers from a skills imbalance, particularly in terms of a skills shortage as measured by the number of vacancies in middle- and high-skilled work. This skills mismatch applies both generally to the level of qualification required, but also specifically in terms of subject areas, with some divergence between subject choices at university and the needs of the jobs market. One of the four recommendations of the OECD was to improve individual career choices through the provision of enhanced career guidance.

Skills imbalances are a problem globally, with 63% of international employers identifying skills gaps as their key barrier to growth according to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025. The report suggests that AI and other digital technologies will necessitate significant up-skilling and re-skilling in businesses across the United Kingdom, with an increasing desire for technological literacy. By 2030, 33% of UK workers risk having outdated skills – a challenge that could strain the Careers Service.

There is a general problem with accessibility to career advice in the United Kingdom, with research by Demos suggesting that there are 9.7 million people in the United Kingdom wishing for career guidance who do not access it. Common problems raised include a lack of knowledge of where to access career support and the incorrect belief that career support is only available for students and young people. This lack of access runs along socioeconomic lines, with OECD research finding that students of lower socioeconomic background in England engage less with Career Services; while equivalent data is lacking for Northern Ireland, it is possible this socioeconomic divide is found across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland’s Careers Service currently faces multiple challenges

In Northern Ireland, the national Careers Service is run by the Department for the Economy (DfE) which runs a free and impartial service for all ages of the population staffed by professionally trained career advisors. The Careers Service has an annual budget of £6 million and employed 104 Careers Advisors as civil servants within DfE in 2023. In 2024 the Careers Service reported that a total of 50,000 pupils and 14,000 adults accessed the Careers Service, with the latest available data from 2023 indicating an overall satisfaction rate of 83%. Outside of the official Careers Service, the Department of Education (DE) is responsible for guidance in terms of the school curriculum and career education within schools.

A 2022 report identified several challenges in the Careers Service, including:

Too focused on schools – 80% of all advisees were under the age of 18. While school guidance is particularly important for school leavers, given the significant demand for careers advice among non-students, the service was recommended to expand outreach across multiple age groups.
Limited resources – the DfE Careers Service faces resource constraints, impacting its ability to provide personalised support. When adjusted for population, Northern Ireland invests significantly less into its Careers Service than either Scotland or Wales.
Modernisation – the jobs market is more dynamic in the current digital age and careers services must be agile in adapting to the needs of the job market to promote the cultivation of desirable skills in applicants. In addition, a growing number of other national Careers Services have adopted modern technology to make advice delivery more personalised and efficient. In the DfE’s 2022 report on the transformation of career support, the careers website was described as ‘insufficiently inspiring despite its rich content’. It suggests that the Careers Service needs to deploy skills assessments, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and gamification to bring to life the world of work.

Could AI technology enhance career guidance?

Recently, there has been great interest in types of text-generating ‘generative AI’ tools such as ChatGPT. GenAI has been suggested as a means of revolutionising how several public sector organisations operate, including the Careers Service and the education system (see the recent RaISe research paper on GenAI in the Education System). A 2023 report by the market research agency Cibyl, for example, found that seven in 10 students will use ChatGPT to support their job applications.

Some stakeholders argue that an AI-integrated careers guidance system could perhaps offer solutions to many of the challenges currently facing the Careers Service. Could AI integration create a ‘reconfigured, re-invigorated and reskilled’ service as identified as a required reform by the Department for Education’s Independent Review of Education? Some opportunities that AI could bring to the Careers Service include:

Streamlined job searches – AI-integrated career services could better connect potential applicants and employers by using large databases to match candidates to roles by their skills and interests.
Streamlined applications – AI is increasingly being used by job applicants to improve their CV and cover letters. Today, CVs typically need to pass through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) algorithm which sifts out applicants based on key words in their CV, before any recruiter reads it. AI tools can help applicants create ATS-compliant CVs which highlight their key skills. Several higher education institutions including Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast are recommending these tools to their students.
Efficiency savings for career services – a large portion of Careers Service staff time is spent on answering basic FAQ style questions. In addition, the Careers Service has been critiqued for prioritising face to face interviews for every year 12 student, perhaps a service too in depth for many at that age. Much of these activities could be replaced by AI based interviews, quizzes or AI chatbots trained on case studies and accessing the most up to date information on the job market. This would allow careers professionals to focus on other tasks such as interview preparation for those who specifically request it or with upcoming interviews.
24-hour specialist support – an AI chatbot tool trained on data from a wide range of careers data could be able to provide advice on specialist careers. This could better support individuals pursuing specialist careers. The AI tool could be available 24 hours a day, which can improve accessibility to the service (particularly for in-work adults seeking to change careers) and was highly requested by both schools and parents.
Mock Interviews – numerous AI tools have ‘voice modes’ that allow them to offer virtual mock interviews, with questions generated using an uploaded CV and job description. These tools can help the interviewee hone their speaking speed, limit use of filler or inappropriate language, and assess the overall delivery of answers. This tool may be useful for applicants practising for problem-based interviews, or require assistance beyond the availability of Career Advisors.

While more research is needed on the effectiveness of AI-integration in career services, one pilot study found that 90% of students felt that AI made their careers advice more ‘engaging and empowering’ after the introduction of a ‘ChatGPT Hub’ at the University of Northampton’s career service. The hub provided students with guidance on how to use the ChatGPT-based GenAI tools, which allowed users to gain better, more reliable, insights when using the careers service. This had the dual benefit of freeing up career advisor time and granting the Careers Service greater specialist knowledge on some niche careers.

Other European countries have AI-enhanced careers services

Several countries have already integrated AI-into their national careers guidance systems, including Austria (AMS Berufsinfomat), Finland (osaamistarvekompassi.fi), Norway (karriereveiledning.no), and the Republic of Ireland (https://mycareerpath.ie/). Although there are several unofficial services available online, at present Northern Ireland does not have AI-integration in its Careers Service. A 2024 DfE review of international examples of effective careers support intervention stated that:

The DfE Careers Service has an interest in developments in this field [AI applications]. Awaiting the wider UK position on regulation to become clearer. It actively partakes in a UK-wide careers policymakers AI forum.

While some institutions like the Career Development Institute have published guidance on using AI in career services, the leading careers advice platform Morrisby argues in their 2024 report that the UK risks falling behind in the careers advice market relative to other European countries who have already adopted AI in a number of services. Some stakeholders argue that lacking an official tool that is accessible to all could lead to ethical and practical challenges to the current careers and recruitment system.

Ethical implementation

While GenAI can prove a highly valuable tool to help jobseekers and careers advisors alike, its use must be carefully managed. GenAI generated applications, such as in CV writing, could distort a candidate’s true abilities and fit for a role. Some organisations such as the Civil Service Fast Stream and the Royal College of Nursing have dedicated pages detailing how AI can be ethically used throughout the application process, for interview practice, and to plan professional development pathways. It will be important for businesses to have confidence that any national AI-integrated service does not distort applicant skills and other important details.

Addressing the digital divide

The current AI landscape risks creating additional inequalities based around access to digital technology. At present, there are divides in accessing digital technology such as laptops and digital infrastructure i.e. strong internet connection, in some parts of Northern Ireland. Even for those who can access advanced AI tools, there are imbalances between those from different socioeconomic backgrounds, with wealthier households and institutions having greater access to better, more sophisticated GenAI tools. For instance, while ChatGPT 3.5 is free, the more powerful ChatGPT 4.0 requires a monthly subscription. An advanced, publicly accessible, AI-enhanced careers service could help mitigate this disparity, ensuring more equitable access to career support technologies.

Evolving recruitment practices

Just as AI is helping applicants refine their CVs and search for jobs, it is also reshaping the recruitment process, as noted above. One such way is through the ATS/sifting process, whereby companies screen candidate applications early in the application process, often without human oversight. A study by the Institute for Student Employers found that in 2023, 28% of employers used AI in the recruitment process, up from 9% in 2022. Use of AI by companies raises ethical considerations, such as how AI can inadvertently introduce bias into the application process if not managed properly, leading to unfair candidate selection.

A strategic vision for AI in careers services

The integration of AI into Northern Ireland’s Careers Service presents a significant opportunity to address existing challenges and transform career guidance for the better. Considered implementation of AI tools to empower and support careers advisors could act to streamline job searches, use its large datasets to enhance applicant success rates, improve efficiency, and provide 24/7 specialist support to Northern Ireland’s Careers Service. However, any AI-integration must ensure equal access, transparency and data protection to prevent and minimise cases of bias as well as ensuring that users accurately identify and promote their skills, rather than misrepresenting them. The potential is significant: a more responsive, personalised, and forward-looking career guidance system that can support Northern Ireland’s economic ambitions and help empower its workforce to navigate an increasingly complex job market.