Picture someone exploring a career as an electrician. They might imagine climbing ladders and pulling wire all day, but what about the morning safety briefings, blueprint reviews, or on-site project management meetings? The day-to-day reality of skilled trades careers is far richer and more varied than most people expect, and that gap between perception and reality is where costly missteps happen, such as training investments that don't pan out or losing time pursuing a path that isn’t the right fit.
February is National Career and Technical Education Month, and we're excited to spotlight a newly launched partnership with CareerViewXR that closes the information gap in the skilled trades. Through funding and support of Truist Foundation, the SkillUp platform now has immersive, interactive experiences embedded across nine skilled trades roles, giving our users an authentic inside look at what these careers actually involve before they commit to training.
For a digital-first platform like ours, this new feature addresses a real challenge: How do you give someone a meaningful sense of what it's like to work with their hands when they're exploring careers from a screen? Traditional job descriptions and even video content can only go so far. CareerViewXR bridges that gap by placing users inside actual job sites with workers performing real tasks, creating a level of visibility and exposure to hands-on careers that hasn’t historically been accessible for everyone.
Seeing the Full Picture
One of the most powerful aspects of the immersive exploration is the level of authenticity. These aren't simulations or gamified versions of a job. The experience is built from real-life footage of actual work environments, designed to show the full scope of a career, including the parts people don't usually consider as part of the daily routine.
"Take our welding experience, for example. One of the first scenes is the welder on a computer checking work orders that are coming in," said Matthew Chaussee, CEO and Co-Founder of CareerViewXR. "It's not just using the welding gun all day long. There are company meetings and other components. We represent careers authentically to really show what ‘a day in the life’ is."
That kind of detail matters, because STARs often face information gaps about what the day-to-day of a career actually looks like. That missing context can lead to misaligned expectations, wasted training investments and ultimately, career disappointment. Adding immersive career exploration that is grounded in universal design for learning principles allows us to meet our users where they are, like on their desktop, tablet or mobile, and help them make more confident, informed decisions about their career aspirations.
Building Confidence Through Exploration
The nine careers currently available through this partnership on our platform span some of the most in-demand skilled trades roles: pipefitter, plumber, HVAC technician, police officer, carpenter, electrician, sheet metal worker, welder and construction project manager. Each experience explores a career from the inside, helping people identify what about the job resonates, and, just as importantly, what doesn't.
"Helping someone discover that a career isn't the right fit is just as valuable as helping them find one that is," Chaussee said. "The sooner we can help people identify that, the happier and more confident they're going to be in a career choice."
That philosophy aligns directly with how we think about career navigation. Our goal is to equip STARs with the tools and information they need to pursue pathways that lead to real economic mobility. That starts with honest, comprehensive exploration.
"We look for ways to strengthen how STARs navigate their career journey," said Elissa Salas, Chief Strategy Officer at SkillUp. "Adding CareerViewXR experiences allows us to provide users a window into careers they might not encounter through their immediate networks or communities. That kind of exposure, seeing yourself in a role you may not have known existed or had access to explore, is where confident career decisions start.”
"CareerViewXR is quickly being adopted in schools across the country, but adoption across K-12 doesn’t support STARs, who arguably have the most immediate need for this sort of career exposure,” said Chaussee. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to partner with SkillUp. They’re ensuring CareerViewXR reaches skilled job seekers who might otherwise be overlooked, transforming individual futures while driving opportunity for immediate and measurable workforce impact."
Powering Clean Energy Career Exploration
This partnership also plays a direct role in our upcoming Clean Energy Industry Hub, which will launch at the end of February. Among the 19 clean energy pathways we’ve identified for STARs, six will be featured with CareerViewXR capabilities. As clean energy continues to grow as a sector with lower barriers to entry, the immersive experiences will help users visualize themselves in careers that are building the infrastructure of the future.
What's Ahead
CareerViewXR currently offers more than 105 immersive field trip experiences spanning roughly 150 careers, with a 10-year vision of making those experiences accessible to every job seeker in every state. Our partnership puts nine of those experiences directly in front of the STARs who need them most, and as we continue to expand our skilled trades and clean energy offerings, this collaboration will only deepen.
