Tom Brunskill thought he wanted to be a corporate lawyer.
Now, looking back, he thinks it may have had less to do with his actual skills and interests, and more to do with his devoted consumption of television dramas like Suits and Boston Legal.
“I used that as my proxy for choosing a career in corporate law, which – shocker – is not a great reason to choose a career,” Brunskill said.
But Brunskill didn’t come from a family of lawyers. And, though he had studied law as an undergraduate in Australia, he said had no sense of what being a corporate lawyer would actually entail on a day-to-day basis. When he got his first job, it was clear almost immediately that it was not a good match.
“We’ve kind of popularized this idea that you kind of have to be miserable in the early parts of your career as you try and find the role that does align with your skills and interests,” Brunskill said. “That should not have to be the case.”
So, he set out to change it. He created a program called Forage, which contracts with companies to offer free, virtual job simulations for students and those looking for work.
Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.
Forage was recently acquired by the education consulting firm EAB, which works with colleges across the U.S. on issues related to enrollment, student success and other institutional goals. The plan is to add Forage’s job simulation resources to other apps that students use regularly, said Scott Schirmeier, the president of technology and partner development at EAB.
Schirmeier said that although Forage job simulations aren’t a replacement for internships, they can help begin to level the playing field for students who don’t have access to internships and other such opportunities.
Brunskill said that those students – the ones who don’t have access to robust career networks and internship opportunities – are the ones who stand to benefit the most from these job simulations. They can become familiar with the niche vocabulary and specific tasks associated with the roles they are interested in, and eventually be more confident going into the job interviews.
“Students that are really well connected or in Ivy League-plus schools, they’re not typically doing our simulations because they already see a route to those employers,” Brunskill said. “There should be no barriers to accessing what those careers look like.”
Related: College leaders refocus attention on their students’ top priority: Jobs after graduation
Brunskill said there are two main goals. One, of course, is to expose students to careers they might not know about (and prevent them from being unpleasantly surprised by their career choice, as he was). The other is to help companies identify candidates who have demonstrated their commitment and interest and who will be likely to stay in these roles for longer periods of time. In the nearly six years since Forage was founded, Brunskill said they’ve found that applicants who go through job simulations are about twice as likely to get jobs at these companies than their peers.
On the website, students can go through a “job application basics” series, which includes lessons on networking, building a resume and how to prepare for an interview. Or they can go straight into job simulations provided by companies in sectors such as investment banking, life sciences and marketing.
The simulations, which are self-paced and typically take a few hours, allow students to get an idea of the types of tasks they might be doing. If, for example, they chose to be on the marketing team at Lululemon, they might be asked to create a marketing plan for a new fitness product, and given a list of questions that their plan should answer. After submitting their marketing plan, they’re given an example of how someone actually in that role might have written the plan.
Brunskill believes that completing these tasks in the simulations makes the students more qualified and competitive applicants. Even if they don’t get the exact job they did a simulation for, they might be more confident in their choice to pursue a similar career at a similar company, and better versed in what that job might actually entail, he said.
Related: College internships matter more than ever – but not everyone can get one
“The career advice I got from my parents was like, ‘You are an argumentative child. You should become a lawyer.’ That is like literally the extent of what their knowledge was,” Brunskill said.
“I reckon within like five weeks — I did it for like three or four years — but within about five weeks I realized this is not for me.”
Avoiding that type of situation also benefits employers, Brunskill said.
When a student can show that they completed a virtual job simulation, it signals to the employer that the applicant invested the time to get to know the company and the type of work they’d be doing in the job they’re applying for. Brunskill said those students are more likely to be engaged, get promoted and stay with the company.
By offering job simulations with Forage, companies can also connect with students on far more college campuses than they could otherwise reasonably visit to recruit from, said Schirmeier.
“They have the most to gain from a student making an informed, deliberate career decision,” Brunskill said.
This story about job simulations was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.