Frequently Asked Questions

SkillsFirst is an AI-powered career development platform that helps students, job seekers, and institutions create high-quality resumes, cover letters, interview responses, and more. It includes real-time scoring, personalized feedback, and data-driven tools to improve career readiness and outcomes at scale.

SkillsFirst is used by students, alumni, career centers, workforce development programs, nonprofits, and reentry support organizations. It serves individuals at all stages of the career journey and helps institutions provide scalable, measurable career guidance.

Deterministic scoring means that every resume or interview is evaluated using fixed rules and rubrics, not black-box machine learning. This approach ensures fairness, transparency, and actionable feedback that students and institutions can trust.

The platform includes tools for resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, elevator pitches, interview simulations, AI fluency evaluation, reviewer support, and portfolios. Each tool is backed by AI-powered feedback and structured scoring.

SkillsFirst uses OpenAI’s API in a privacy-protective way. Personal information is automatically redacted from all document-based tools—including resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles—before any AI analysis. No data is ever used to train AI models, and SkillsFirst follows strict privacy and security standards to protect student and institutional data.

SkillsFirst enables equity-focused advising by providing consistent, rubric-based scoring across all users. Tools like the Low CRI Watchlist help staff identify students needing extra support, regardless of how often they engage, ensuring more equitable outcomes.

The Student Success AI Bundle is an advanced upgrade that enhances SkillsFirst's core tools with a wide range of customizable AI-powered scans. It helps institutions deliver more tailored feedback to students across resumes, cover letters, interviews, and portfolios‚ ensuring superior outcomes and scalable coaching.

SkillsFirst combines a full suite of AI-powered tools—resumes, cover letters, interviews, LinkedIn profiles, and career pitches—with transparent scoring and insights. Unlike platforms that focus on a single task, we provide comprehensive support from first draft to job offer, all in one place.

Our tools use structured AI prompts to provide clear, actionable feedback in everyday language. Each tool is built on transparent rubrics, helping students understand exactly how to improve—without relying on opaque or generic advice.

Yes. Our Career Readiness Insights Module uses deterministic algorithms to generate numeric scores across 13 areas. Institutions can track top scores, monitor trends, and use the Low CRI Watchlist to proactively identify students who may need additional help.

Our scoring is rubric-based and deterministic—meaning it follows a clear set of rules. Each student’s content is evaluated consistently, and scores are easy to interpret and act on. We don’t rely on black-box algorithms or benchmark comparisons to other students.

Absolutely. We support the entire career preparation process, including practice interviews, LinkedIn profiles, cover letters, and career pitch development. Each tool is paired with real-time feedback and scoring to help students make measurable progress.

SkillsFirst is a deterministic, forward-looking platform that evaluates students based on the quality of their actual career artifacts—resumes, interviews, cover letters, and more—using structured, transparent rubrics.
VMock relies on machine learning to benchmark resumes against historical data, which can obscure how feedback is generated. Suitable focuses on tracking co-curricular engagement rather than evaluating readiness artifacts directly.
SkillsFirst bridges that gap—turning what students create into clear readiness signals that advisors can use to guide support, monitor growth, and improve outcomes.

SkillsFirst tags resume samples and job recommendations with O*NET-SOC codes, helping users explore career paths and align their documents with real-world job titles and industry expectations.

The Career Readiness Insights Module is a dashboard layer that provides real-time visibility into student progress across 13 core tools. It displays individual scores, rolling averages, and a Composite Readiness Index to support coaching, reporting, and equity tracking.

The CRI summarizes student performance across all evaluated documents and tools, creating a single numeric index from structured rubric scores. It helps institutions track engagement and identify students who may need support.

Yes. Staff can view individual student scores across AI tools, including top-performing scans and each student’s Career Readiness Index (CRI). A Low CRI Watchlist also flags students with low scores across key documents, helping staff prioritize outreach. Organization-wide averages are also visible to support broader insights.

Insights are generated automatically whenever a user completes one of the 13 Career Readiness scoring tools. These include resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, interview, and pitch evaluations—each scored using strict, rubric-based criteria. Results are instantly visualized on staff dashboards without any manual tagging or data entry.

SkillsFirst includes a dedicated NACE Competencies Score, which evaluates how well a resume demonstrates eight core career readiness competencies such as leadership, communication, and professionalism. These scores are backed by structured rubrics and feed into the broader Career Readiness Insights Module.

SkillsFirst uses structured, rubric-based AI scoring tools to evaluate real student work—like resumes and interview transcripts. These scores feed into indicators like the CRI and Watchlist, giving staff actionable, predictive signals to guide support strategies without relying on self-reported data or surveys.

The Low CRI Watchlist is a staff-facing list that highlights students whose CRI falls in the “Emerging” range. It updates in real time and supports proactive outreach by surfacing students who may need career readiness coaching. It's not a judgment—just a signal for potential early intervention.

The CRI is a composite score based on a student’s top performance across at least three AI-powered evaluation tools (e.g., resume, interview, LinkedIn). It reflects demonstrated readiness—not just participation—and is calculated as a user-based average of their top scores. The CRI helps staff identify where support may be needed.

No. Students see their individual document scores and feedback, but CRI and Watchlist data are only visible to staff. This separation preserves student privacy while giving advisors the insights they need to provide timely, targeted support.

All organization dashboard averages are user-based. For each scoring tool, the system averages each student’s top score. The organization-wide CRI average reflects the mean of each student’s Career Readiness Index, based on the scores they’ve contributed. This approach ensures fair weighting and captures meaningful progress over time.

The AI Fluency Score evaluates how well a resume communicates real-world AI competencies across seven criteria, such as tool usage, context, and quantified results. It helps students articulate their AI experience credibly and aligns with emerging employer expectations.

After the AI Fluency Score is generated, the embedded agent recommends targeted improvements‚ likerevising bullet points, highlighting AI usage, or exploring related skills. It also links students to curated OpenAI Academy resources based on their gaps.

AI fluency is increasingly expected across industries‚ not just tech roles. SkillsFirst helps students describe how they've used AI tools in research, writing, productivity, or creative tasks so they can demonstrate adaptability and readiness for AI-enhanced workplaces.

SkillsFirst includes a Resume Builder with AI-powered support for resume creation, formatting, and scoring. It offers tools like the Resume Readiness Check, Bullet Point Impact Analysis, Skills Gap Analysis, Action Verb Enhancement, and ATS Optimization. Users can build from scratch, import existing resumes, or edit samples.

It evaluates resumes across 10 key categories using a structured rubric and AI-based parsing. Scores reflect employer-ready signals like bullet clarity, quantified impact, and grammar. Each resume includes detailed feedback and actionable suggestions—no guesswork or machine learning involved.

Yes. SkillsFirst includes keyword and job alignment tools that compare resumes to job postings. Users can identify missing keywords, assess skill match, and receive targeted suggestions to improve alignment with a specific job or industry.

Students receive personalized AI feedback in real time, including suggestions for strengthening bullet points, highlighting measurable impact, improving verb usage, and fixing grammar or structure. This feedback is structured, rubric-aligned, and built for iterative improvement.

The Cover Letter Builder allows users to create letters by starting from scratch, editing samples, or uploading existing content. It includes AI-enhanced templates and personalized feedback tools that ensure clarity, professionalism, and alignment with job requirements.

Yes. SkillsFirst offers keyword analysis, job alignment, and cover letter fit scans that compare the user's letter to a specific job description. These tools suggest language and structure adjustments to improve alignment with employer expectations.

The Cover Letter Quality Score evaluates writing fundamentals like structure, tone, grammar, and clarity—regardless of job context. The Cover Letter Job Fit Score measures how well the letter aligns with a specific job description, focusing on customization, motivation, and value alignment. One scores how well it’s written; the other scores how well it fits.

The LinkedIn Profile Builder allows users to upload a resume-style version of their LinkedIn profile and receive AI-powered scoring and feedback across 10 employer-aligned categories. Using the LinkedIn Quality Score tool, students get detailed insights on their headline, summary, tone, experience, and overall profile strength — all based on rubric-based criteria. This helps them optimize for visibility, clarity, and professionalism in a recruiter-facing format.

Once a LinkedIn profile is uploaded, AI scans generate targeted suggestions for improving clarity, impact, and consistency across sections like the About summary, Experience, and Skills. Users can improve personal branding, tone, and job alignment with step-by-step guidance.

Yes. Career coaches can review LinkedIn content using the same Centralized Review Center as resumes and cover letters. They can annotate feedback, leave comments, and use AI-assisted tools to guide profile improvements efficiently.

SkillsFirst includes both general and stage-specific AI interview tools. Students can practice answering mock interview questions and receive detailed feedback. The General Interview Score is ideal for broad readiness checks, while the Pre-Screen, First-Round, and Final-Round Interview Scores offer targeted feedback based on typical expectations for each stage. Each tool uses unique criteria and scoring rubrics aligned with employer expectations.

Students can begin a mock interview by selecting a prebuilt option or by generating a custom AI interview. The custom path allows students to enter a job title or paste a job description, which shapes the questions and scoring to match their career goals. Both paths include AI-generated questions and structured feedback to support effective preparation.

SkillsFirst transcribes each spoken response and sends the transcript (not audio) to OpenAI for analysis. Depending on the tool, the system may return structured scores using rubric-based evaluation or provide narrative feedback to guide improvement. Audio files are never shared, and all processing follows strict privacy safeguards.

Pitch tools assess short, spoken introductions like elevator or career fair pitches. Unlike interview tools, which focus on role-specific Q&A, pitch tools evaluate clarity, confidence, and relevance in brief self-introductions. Each response is scored across defined categories with feedback to improve delivery and structure.

Yes. Administrators can create interview sets (practice or pre-interviews) using custom or prebuilt questions. Once students complete them, staff can review responses, leave comments, or rely on AI scoring tools for structured feedback.

The Career Portfolio Builder helps students collect and present samples of their work—such as writing, presentations, and projects—in a professional, goal-aligned format. Portfolios can be tailored to specific roles or industries and shared with employers via custom links.

While portfolios are not directly scored, students receive AI guidance on how to structure content, align with job titles, and present their artifacts clearly. Reviewers can also leave comments via the platform's Review Center.

Unlike academic portfolios that capture a student's full body of work, SkillsFirst portfolios are designed to support job applications and career goals. Students can select and organize artifacts that align with specific roles, and optional AI tools help them explain how each sample demonstrates relevant skills or experiences.

AI Reviewer Tools help staff and career coaches review resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and interviews using any AI tools configured by the organization — including both rubric-based scoring and narrative feedback. These tools accelerate and elevate feedback, making it easier to deliver consistent, high-quality support at scale.

AI feedback offers structured insights that reviewers can reference or build upon when giving their own feedback. It’s not meant to be edited directly — reviewers can choose how much to incorporate, or rely entirely on their own observations.

No. All numeric scores are generated by AI using structured evaluation prompts. However, staff can initiate a new AI scoring on any document submitted for review. The resulting score is saved in the student’s score history and will display as the top score if it’s the most recent. This ensures consistency across all evaluations while preserving transparency.

Yes. When a document is submitted for review, reviewers can see the most recent AI-generated score and detailed breakdown. Access to this scoring data depends on the reviewer’s organization role. All reviewers assigned to a document can see its score, but only designated staff may access broader dashboard analytics.

SkillsFirst can be implemented in as little as 1-2 weeks. Institutions receive a branded site, onboarding resources, and dedicated support. Most campuses go live within a month depending on scheduling and review processes.

Yes. SkillsFirst offers live and recorded training for staff, faculty, and student ambassadors. Topics include tool usage, AI feedback interpretation, and strategies for integration into classes, advising, or programs.

Institutions receive a dedicated Customer Success Manager and access to a responsive support team. The platform includes in-app guidance, live chat, and a resource library to support both staff and student users.

Yes. SkillsFirst supports multiple integration options, including single sign-on (SSO) and a flexible API for importing, exporting, and syncing data. Institutions can use the API to pull user data, scores, and documents into other systems or support platform migrations.

Yes. SkillsFirst offers branding and configuration options that allow institutions to tailor the platform's appearance and tools to align with their goals, workflows, and branding standards.

Yes. The Premium API enables integration with dashboards, reporting tools, or learning management systems by providing real-time access to scores and career document data across the SkillsFirst platform.