Your coursework is already proof.
Employers just can't read it.
CareerForge asks a student to identify and document what they personally did on a project they have already finished, links each skill back to the artifact it came from, and compares that evidence-linked profile with a target role — then names the next project worth building.
Do not just claim your skills. Prove them.
One cycle, run once per project
Every screen in the demo belongs to the same four-stage cycle. A student finishes a class project; four stages later they hold a skill profile where each claim points at the material behind it, plus one clear instruction for what to build next — which becomes the next project they upload.
The demo below is a clickable simulation. It runs start to finish in about two minutes.
Interactive demo
Interactive concept prototype · illustrative data
Presenter navigation: open any stage during the pitch, or begin at Stage 01 for the intended product story.
STAGE 1 OF 4
Add a project, then say what was yours.
Group work is where evidence usually breaks down. Before anything is analyzed, the student identifies and documents their own contribution, so every downstream skill can show whether its owner and source are known.
Load the prepared sample project to begin. This demo does not upload files to a server.
A working product would accept reports, presentations, repositories and design files.
Which parts did you build yourself?
YOUR DOCUMENTED CONTRIBUTION
- Reading project artifacts
- Mapping student-confirmed contributions
- Linking skills to evidence
STAGE 2 OF 4
Every skill points back to where it came from.
Each item carries its source, the excerpt behind it, and how the claim was attributed. Some entries come from project material; others come from the student's own reflection and are labeled that way.
TECHNICAL
TRANSFERABLE
Select any skill to see the evidence behind it.
Evidence levels describe how directly a claim is supported by the material shown. Strong: directly attributable material or a measured result with a clear source. Developing: attribution or outcome remains incomplete. Limited: mentioned in the project but not attributable to this student.
STAGE 3 OF 4
Compared with a role the student is aiming at.
Requirements are checked one at a time against the evidence map from stage 2. The result is a list of what is supported and what is not. It is not a prediction of hiring outcomes.
This classroom prototype runs a prepared comparison for the selected illustrative role. A working product would analyze a job description supplied by the student.
—ILLUSTRATIVE MATCH BASED ON
THE EVIDENCE SHOWN
Scoring method: Supported = 1, Partial = 0.5, Gap = 0, divided by the number of requirements listed.
STAGE 4 OF 4
One project to build next — and why that one.
The cycle closes by naming a single next project, chosen because it addresses the requirements that currently have no evidence behind them. Completing it returns the student to stage 1 with new material to add.
CONCEPT RECRUITER VIEW · NOT A LIVE FEATURE
Interactive concept prototype. The project, skills, evidence excerpts, job descriptions, match results and recommendations on this page are sample data written for this demonstration. No analysis is performed by a live system, no file is uploaded, and no result has been checked by an employer or an institution.
What the students told us
Part 1 of this project asked engineering and STEM students how they currently describe their skills to employers. These are the figures that round produced, reported as counts.
rated the core features very or extremely useful.
preferred access through their university rather than buying it themselves.
students, in one exploratory round.
Exploratory student survey; this small sample is directional and is not representative of the full market.
We hold our own claims to the standard the product describes: the figures above are what was measured, and everything we have not measured yet is named as not measured yet.
Proposed business model
Three revenue hypotheses, in the order we would test them. Each is a proposal to be validated, not an arrangement that exists today.
HYPOTHESIS 01
Free first project
- One project analyzed at no cost
- Full evidence map and one role comparison
- Rationale: the cycle only shows its value once a student sees their own work come back as evidence
HYPOTHESIS 02
Student subscription
- Unlimited projects and role comparisons
- An evidence base that grows each semester
- Rationale: value accumulates with each project added, which is also the retention mechanism
HYPOTHESIS 03
Institutional license
- Career center seats and co-branded access
- Cohort-level reporting for the institution
- Rationale: 6 of 10 surveyed students preferred university-provided access
Pricing and willingness to pay remain to be validated. No prices have been tested, and no institutional agreement exists.
The mark
A circular seal reads as a mark of traceability — like the hallmark a maker places on finished work. That is the brand idea in one shape: each claim should remain connected to the material behind it. The serif monogram uses the same typographic family as the headlines here, so the mark and the interface behave as one system.
It holds up as a one-color favicon, a badge on dark or light backgrounds, and a small inline mark beside a university logo for co-branded career center materials.
Blueprint navy
Forge ember
Drafting blue
Working paper
Brand architecture
A family, or umbrella, structure: one master brand carries every future line, so each extension inherits the same name and the same promise instead of building its own from zero.
for Engineering
for Business
for Design
Extensions shown are proposed directions, not products in development.
Building brand equity
- AWARENESSStudent organizations, capstone courses and career centers — the places where the need already appears.
- ASSOCIATIONOwn the words evidence and proof in career readiness, and repeat them at every touchpoint.
- PERCEIVED QUALITYSource traceability visible inside the product: every skill shows where it came from.
- LOYALTYAn evidence base that grows across semesters, so each added project makes the earlier ones more useful.