CodePath recently launched its Email Coach AI Bot — an innovative tool designed to help students confidently navigate and secure job offers in a complex career development landscape.
Mastering effective communication is crucial as it can be the determining factor in whether students land a screening interview or referral. A striking 94% of hiring managers emphasize the importance of cover letters in their decision-making process. With CodePath’s Email Coach AI Bot, students can craft polished emails and messages to enhance their job search and networking efforts. The software is particularly useful during during those critical moments when personal career guidance or coaching may not be available.
We asked Geneva Scott, who leads CodePath’s career center, and Zack Parker, our VP of product engineering, to talk about the project's scope and potential to shape the future.
How can this tool bridge the gap between education, technical training, job offers for students, colleges, and employers?
GENEVA:
Our students are some of the most technically prepared in computer science because they do their coursework and engage in CodePath’s programs at their universities to improve their skills. However, nontechnical skills like verbal and written communication are often overlooked during the job search. Students also often lack the skills to present their best selves during interviews.
This tool helps address it in a way that isn't intimidating. For example, if a student has applied for a job and wishes to message a recruiter but feels unsure about crafting an appropriate LinkedIn message, they may hesitate to seek help and not take any action. However, with the Email Coach, students have a readily accessible tool they can use at their convenience.
Effective communication is critical and can often make or break whether they get a screening interview or referral.
ZACK:
This is one component of a large suite of bots we intend to build at CodePath. The bots will help offer a more personalized experience to every student. For career guidance, the bots are available 24/7, with no appointment required, to provide some of the help currently offered by the career coaching team. It frees up our experts to focus on the highest-leverage guidance and mentoring. The bots can also assist students in improving their resumes, practicing for interviews, planning their career paths, and more.
We want to ensure students can have interactive conversations with an agent who can help them at any point in the experience. The career team did a great job collecting and organizing the data that the bot relies on. From there, we can incrementally expand the functionality. I'm excited to see this tool integrated into course materials.
When did CodePath recognize the need to support students with a new coaching tool?
GENEVA:
We prioritize integrating AI into our services, especially at the Career Center. This will enable us to help more students be responsive to the tools they’ll use in their work and help us address capacity issues as we scale. We need to find ways for our students to teach themselves how to fish.
We want to provide them with the framework, resources, and opportunities to guide their own professional development when it works for them. AI is always accessible, and this provides support when they need it. That critical just-in-time support is a framework for our thoughts about using AI. We started with the communications piece, and in addition to emails, the new tool can help refine LinkedIn messages.
How will the Email Coach serve underrepresented students and their pursuit of competitive careers and futures?
GENEVA:
Underrepresented students sometimes lack professional networks and knowledge about the process of landing a job in tech. Many come from first-generation or low-income backgrounds, where their parents or family members haven’t shared these experiences.
This is another way we can assist them in connecting the dots to create compelling messages and effective outreach to achieve their goals. Our underrepresented students, particularly low-income and first-generation students, often work in addition to school, so they may need more time to meet with a career coach when we offer appointments. Our Email Coach gives them another vehicle to engage with us and connect to the support they need.
Talk a bit about the current features offered and those you plan to add in the future.
GENEVA:
Current features refine emails, LinkedIn messages, or other forms of communication that students use to fill out job applications and interact with recruiters. Ultimately, it assists with the full life cycle of communicating with companies. We are also currently determining the type of targeted coach we’ll develop next.
Let's talk about exploration and growth. What does your team hope to learn as more students use the tool?
GENEVA:
It'll be a collaborative effort as we gather data on the back end to learn what students use, the lengths of their sessions, and other details.
ZACK:
That’s the value of AI — the information and insights we gain from the data, and pinpointing students who need particular interventions maybe slightly earlier than we otherwise would have.
How has the process of building this new tool aided your professional growth?
GENEVA:
I learned a lot during the development of this tool, as I am not an engineer. The engineering team built it with intentionality. We're not just letting AI run rampant at CodePath. Our goal is to determine the best way to use this technology to support our students as they still engage in information-seeking behavior. As we consider integrating AI across our courses, we must model how students should use these tools as support rather than a crutch.
ZACK:
I'm having a blast with AI, but I know it can cause some anxiety to see this change in the market, particularly for our students and brand-new engineers. AI will completely change hiring patterns for junior engineers, and it’s scary. But it's really fun software to work with, and I've been building software for 20-plus years. There have only been a few moments in my career when something new came out that was exciting to be around. I'm excited to be a part of building the future of AI.
CodePath's Email Coach AI Bot is currently available to all students enrolled in our courses and programs. To enroll in a CodePath course, visit https://www.codepath.org/courses. If you are not a student and you would like to learn more about our tool, contact development@codepath.org.