Hot Careers: Helping students and job seekers discover promising pathways

Whether you’re guiding students toward the right major, or helping job seekers get the training they need to find work, one question is always front of mind: will this investment pay off in a good career?

That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Hot Careers, a new feature in the Career Coach platform that automatically identifies and highlights the most promising career pathways in your region — helping learners and advisors make confident, data-driven decisions.

Career Coach: Connecting Education & Training to Career Opportunity

For years, Career Coach has enabled institutions and communities to help people — including over 2 million last year alone — clarify their career goals, and find the training or education they need to achieve them.

By connecting local labor market data directly to academic programs and training pathways, it provides a one-stop resource for assessing interests and skills, exploring region-specific labor market insight, and making a confident enrollment decision.

And with Hot Careers, it gets even better.

Meet Hot Careers: Spotlighting the Most In-Demand Jobs

Hot Careers helps you drive engagement by adding a new, compelling entry point for career exploration on your site. 

Using the same region-specific labor market data that powers the rest of Career Coach, it automatically identifies occupations that have a:

1. Strong employment base of 200 or more jobs in your region

2. High growth rate that exceeds the regional average over the last 5 years 

3. High salary that’s greater than the average median wage of all occupations in your region

Easy Discoverability

Occupations that meet the above criteria are now highlighted on the Career Coach homepage, and tagged throughout the platform with a special flame icon that lets users know this is a “Hot Career” in your region.

This means that whether you’re serving a prospective student, a current student exploring next steps, or a job seeker looking for stability and growth, Hot Careers points them straight to the most promising opportunity.

Why Hot Careers Matters

For Students and Job Seekers:

Hot Careers gives learners and job seekers the confidence to pursue education or training, knowing their choice is aligned with real-world employment opportunities. This brings an added layer of clarity and focus to what might otherwise be the overwhelming work of career exploration.

For Advisors and Administrators:

Advisors save time and increase impact. Hot Careers automatically finds and surfaces the most high-performing local occupations, so advisors can focus on having meaningful conversations that guide students and job seekers to better outcomes.

For Institutions and Workforce Organizations:

By providing insight into top occupations — along with the other tools included in Career Coach, including a skills inventory, resume builder, links to live job postings, and more — institutions and organizations can drive online engagement while reinforcing their role as a leader in supporting workforce success.

Career Coach: A Full-Funnel Career Navigation Experience

Hot Careers is just one part of a complete, full-funnel experience provided by Career Coach. Learners can also:

• Take an interest assessment to receive personalized career suggestions

• Inventory their skills to find occupations that align with their previous education or work experience

• Build a resume, explore live job postings, and apply for jobs at partner employers directly in the Career Coach platform

Widget Builder: Embeddable Career Data, Always Up-to-Date

For institutions focused on attracting more learners at the very top of the funnel, Widget Builder brings Career Coach insights directly to your website — meeting prospective students and job seekers where they already are.

With customizable widgets powered by auto-updating Lightcast data, you can:

• Display trusted wage, job demand, and even alumni career outcomes data on program pages

• Build confidence in program ROI and local career opportunity

• Seamlessly link into full Career Coach experiences for deeper exploration

Together, Widget Builder + Career Coach ensure your website doesn’t just describe programs — it demonstrates their career-relevance and guides learners all the way through exploration, decision-making, and next steps.

Connect with Lightcast to see Career Coach + Hot Careers in Action

Hot Careers is live now for all Career Coach subscribers at no additional cost. It’s part of Lightcast’s commitment to continuous innovation, helping you deliver maximum value to your students, job seekers, and community.

Have questions about Career Coach, Hot Careers, or Widget Builder? Connect with us to request a personalized walkthrough, or reach out to your dedicated account manager. We’re happy to help you explore how Lightcast’s data-rich tools can help you grow your impact.

To learn more about trends affecting the global labor market like AI, labor shortages, and geopolitics, read our latest research, Fault Lines.