How MapDash is Elevating Investments for Career Centers
Truly understanding labor market demands and educational program alignment requires layering many different datasets together to derive insights.
Career and technical education centers have a unique challenge as they prepare students for careers in industries that are continuously evolving. Keeping programs aligned to the needs of local employers requires keen insight into labor market data, which is not always easy to glean.
Harnessing this insight into the labor market requires detailed data about current population trends, employment opportunities, and skill gaps, as well as future projections to see how these variables are expected to change over time. While these datasets do exist, they must be sourced from different authorities and combined to produce meaningful information for decision-making. That’s no small feat, especially for centers working with limited resources.
As a result, programming decisions are typically based on "legacy" programs rather than current workforce demands. This approach means opportunities for increased technical education may be missed altogether, exacerbating the trade gap and hindering career centers from achieving their missions.
Datastory’s MapDash™ location intelligence platform provides the multitude of data that career and technical education centers need to align programming to regional needs, all in an easy-to-use interface that enables decision-makers to instantly visualize and analyze critical information. Not only does MapDash simplify data collection and analysis workflows for resource-strapped teams, but it also produces compelling map visualizations and infographics that can be used to boost stakeholder engagement and educate students about new opportunities.
The Power of Location Intelligence
Location is an essential factor in understanding career opportunities and education gaps, but is not always leveraged as much as it should be. MapDash empowers career centers with the relevant geographic data for analyzing demographics alongside labor market dynamics.
Data Visualization & Analysis
Datastory recently worked with a leading regional career center to bridge gaps in labor shortages and increase student enrollment with location intelligence. With MapDash’s preconfigured datasets, the career center is now able to:
With the right data, career and education centers can understand how future population trends can impact student enrollment, demand, and access.
Reveal deeper patterns about workforce demographics: With a view of student population demographics overlaid with trade school locations, the center can now identify gaps or misalignments between student demand and program availability;
Understand employment opportunities by trade and location: Heat maps of industry and occupational data help the center strategically promote trades programs correlated to job opportunities and employer concentrations in their region;
Power data-driven marketing campaigns: Geofencing now empowers the center’s marketing efforts, targeting nearby students with mobile ads for trade school programs.
With MapDash’s off-the-shelf location intelligence, career centers can see where gaps exist between student programs and in-demand jobs. Overlaying multiple datasets in visual format makes it easy to both understand these regional trends and communicate insights with stakeholders to drive smarter decision-making.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Thanks to the data analysis described above, the career center now has a spatial view of workforce dynamics in their region and is able to understand key information from interactive map layers that reveal otherwise hidden insights.
What’s more, MapDash gave the career center confidence in knowing which programs employers would find valuable, and where the students who might be interested in filling them were. The superintendent notes that this has elevated the accuracy of spending decisions related to taxpayer investments in career education.
Career and education centers across the US are developing similar confidence[1] with MapDash by leveraging location intelligence to power more data-driven decision-making. With reliable data at their fingertips, career centers can quantify needs and opportunities to evolve programs based on real-world labor market conditions, and effectively communicate the reasoning behind these decisions to stakeholders and the larger community.
Community Impact
At the core of any career and education center is a mission to advance employment opportunities for students in their region, and bolster the economy by closing skills gaps. The insights derived from location intelligence not only reveal trends and fuel stronger decision-making, but most importantly have a positive impact on the center’s community.
For example, some of the biggest impacts the regional career center has seen since adopting MapDash has been in the educational and employment outcomes of their students. Location intelligence has afforded the center the ability to recruit and prepare students for the most acute in-demand roles, closing labor gaps for employers and connecting individuals to fulfilling careers.
Location Intelligence for Career & Education Centers
By leveraging pre-configured workforce and demographic data in MapDash, career and education centers across the country are harnessing location intelligence to ensure that student programming aligns with the changing demands of regional job markets. It’s never been easier to understand geographic trends in educational and employment opportunities, or take action on these data-driven insights to make a real impact on a community’s economy.
To learn how you can use MapDash to further your career center’s mission, get in touch with the Datastory team.