most requested skills are durable skills like communication
America Succeeds and Lightcast, 2025Why Welica
Career help stops too early, starts too late, and covers too little.
Most career help ends at a quiz result or begins at the CV. The part in between, where the real preparation happens, is mostly left to the student. Here's what we found, and what we built instead.
01
Most career tools stop at the quiz.
Quizzes and tests tell you which jobs might fit, and then you're on your own. When we looked, very few tools showed, role by role, what it actually takes to get in: the skills, the projects, the people to meet and the interviews to prepare for.
Quiz result
Welica covers thisthe gap: skills · projects · people · interview prep
CV and job search
Welica starts where the quiz ends: pick one of 406 roles and get the full plan.
02
Technical skills are only part of it.
The few tools that do guide you mostly teach technical skills. But employers rank communication, problem solving and resilience near the top. How well you manage stress, focus and energy shapes how well you learn and work.
resilience, flexibility and agility are employers' second most important core skill
WEF, Future of Jobs 2025academic results rose by 11 percentile points when schools built social and emotional skills, across 213 programmes
Durlak et al., 2011So Welica puts life skills and wellbeing tools in the same plan as your role.
03
The world changed faster than career advice.
AI has sped up changes that were already happening. Employers expect about two in five of workers' core skills to change by 2030.
Confusion is rising: 39% of 15-year-olds can't say what job they expect at 30, up sharply since 2018.
Worry is common too: about half of US workers say they are worried about how AI will be used at work.
The information exists, but it's scattered across government databases, reports and headlines. Welica pulls it together for each of 406 roles, task by task, and checks it every month.
core skills expected to change by 2030
WEF, 2025of 15-year-olds unsure of their career
OECD, 2025of US workers worried about AI at work
Pew Research Center, 202504
Career prep starts too late.
Most career help is built for the end: CVs, job boards and interview tips in final year. That's the bottom of the funnel. The choices that shape a career come much earlier: subjects, first projects, the people you meet.
Where the choices that shape a career get made
- Class 10Choosing a stream
- Welica: start from 16Class 12Entrance exams, a degree
- Year 1First projects, clubs
- Year 2A specialisation
- Year 3Internships
- Where most people startFinal yearPlacements
teenagers who explored careers at 15 were more likely to have a job at 25 and earned more
OECD, 2021of young Indian graduates were unemployed in 2022, against 3.4% of young people who can't read or write: a degree alone isn't a plan
ILO and IHD, 2024Welica is free to start from 16, so the plan can begin years before the deadline.
05
Learning shouldn't feel too easy.
Many apps are built for engagement: streaks, badges, things to tap. Tapping is easy. Learning isn't, and it shouldn't be. When learning feels effortless, it often doesn't stick.
Same Harvard physics class, two ways of teaching it
Students felt they learned more from the lecture, but scored higher after doing the work.
Polished lecture
Felt they learned: More
Test score: Lower
Active session
Felt they learned: Less
Test score: Higher
What happened when students practised with AI
AI that gave answers made practice easier and the exam harder.
About 1,000 high-school maths students. Each bar shows how a group scored compared with classmates who had no AI at all (the line at 0).
Better than students with no AIWorseAbout the same
| Group | In practice, with AI | In the exam, AI removed |
|---|---|---|
| AI that gave answers | 48% higher | 17% lower |
| AI tutor that gave hints only | 127% higher | about the same |
The answers made practice feel easy. The skill didn't carry over to the exam.
Bastani et al., 202572%
of students thought cramming had worked better, though spacing beat it for 90%. Kornell, 2009
So in Welica there are no streaks, badges or leaderboards. Every lesson ends with a prompt to think and write, and a quick review comes back weeks later.
What Welica does about it
Five problems, five design choices.
| The problem | What Welica does |
|---|---|
| Career tools stop at the quiz | A full plan for each of 406 roles, chapter by chapter |
| Only technical skills | Life skills courses and wellbeing tools in the same plan |
| Information is scattered | Every role checked monthly against official data, task by task |
| Prep starts too late | Free to start from 16; one short step a day, long before the deadline |
| Learning made too easy | Real prompts, practice with feedback, reviews weeks later; no streaks or badges |
Sources
- The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation, OECD, 2025
- India Employment Report, ILO and IHD, 2024
- Career education that works, Kashefpakdel and Percy, 2017
- Indicators of teenage career readiness, OECD, 2021
- Optimising learning using flashcards, Kornell, 2009
- The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning, Durlak et al., 2011
- The Future of Jobs Report: Skills outlook, WEF, 2025
- Workers' views of AI use in the workplace, Pew, 2025
- Durable by Design, America Succeeds and Lightcast, 2025
- Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning, Deslauriers et al., 2019
- Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning, Bastani et al., 2025
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