As young people navigate an increasingly complex landscape of education, training, and work, the stakes of getting good guidance have never been higher. Yet, access to clear, trustworthy career navigation still too often depends on zip code, family background, or luck. As Vice President of the Britebound Center for Career Navigation at JFF, Jeff Bulanda focuses on building the tools, research, policy, and collaborative networks that can help career guidance add up to something young people can actually rely on. His work brings education, workforce systems, employers, and communities into closer alignment to ensure fewer learners are left to figure it out alone.
What is the nature of your work?
I lead an effort to rethink how guidance works in the U.S., especially for young people who do not have easy access to social capital, trusted advisors, or clear information about pathways beyond a four-year degree.
Practically, this means designing and testing new models of career navigation: digital tools that help young people compare options; research that captures how youth, parents, and employers actually make decisions; and place-based pilots that align schools, workforce systems, community organizations, and employers around clearer pathways. A core part of the work is translating complexity around credentials, funding, labor market data, and career progression into guidance that is usable, accessible, and actionable.
I work closely with funders, employers, and practitioners to move ideas into real settings, while keeping youth voice and evidence-based practice at the center of the work. The goal isn’t a single program, but a broader shift in how systems support career navigation over time.
Why is this work important?
Young people are navigating an expanding set of education and work options in a labor market that is more fragmented and faster-moving than in the past. Choices are often high-stakes and hard to reverse, yet access to high-quality guidance remains uneven and too often depends on family background, zip code, or luck.
Recent research from Gallup, JFF, and the Walton Family Foundation underscores this gap. Fewer than one in three high school students say they feel very prepared to pursue the education or career path they’re most interested in. Also, parents often feel far less confident about many post-high school options beyond college or work. While around 60 percent of parents say they know “a great deal” about paid jobs and 52 percent about bachelor’s degrees, only 37 percent say the same about associate degrees, and even smaller shares feel well-informed about certificates, internships, apprenticeships, or other pathways.
This matters because poor navigation decisions are costly for individuals, communities, and the economy. Misdirected training, low-quality first jobs, and opaque credential pathways contribute to debt, stalled mobility, and disengagement from learning. At the same time, employers struggle to find talent, and policymakers invest billions in programs that learners do not always understand or trust.
What’s been the biggest surprise so far?
One of the biggest surprises has been how much activity exists around career navigation, and at the same time, how hard it is for those efforts to add up to a clear experience for young people. There are many thoughtful tools, programs, and partnerships tackling pieces of the problem, and real progress has been made. Yet guidance is still fragmented, in part because education, training, and funding systems are complicated and not intuitive, even for people who work in the field. It’s easy to go down the wrong path, hit dead ends, or give up altogether because the information is hard to follow and the rules aren’t clear.
I’ve also been struck by the persistence and resourcefulness of young people themselves. In research we’ve done on how youth use social media to navigate careers, we see them building informal networks, seeking advice, and sharing experiences in spaces where they feel able to ask honest questions and admit uncertainty. At the same time, that openness reveals the frustration, anxiety, and even despair many feel as they search for work and try to move forward.
Where do you see your work in five years?
In five years, I hope career navigation feels less like a patchwork and more like something young people can actually rely on. Right now, there are many strong efforts, but they often operate in parallel rather than in concert. The Center for Career Navigation’s role is to help those efforts add up by aligning systems, organizations, and policy around a shared understanding of what good guidance looks like, grounded in how young people actually make decisions.
I expect the work to show up at multiple levels. For young people, that means access to clear, trustworthy information about options, costs, and next steps. For communities and states, it means better coordination across education, workforce, and funding systems, using shared frameworks and evidence to reduce dead ends. For employers, it means treating navigation as part of talent development, not something that happens before someone shows up to work.
My role will continue to focus on building alignment across these efforts and keeping youth experience at the center. Success won’t be defined by any single tool or program, but by whether fewer young people feel left to figure it out alone and more can see a future that feels both realistic and within reach.
What else should people know?
This work is only possible because of strong local organizations that are already deeply embedded in their communities and doing thoughtful, effective work with young people. Across regions, we partner with groups like Urban Alliance in Chicago, the Workforce Development Board of Seattle–King County, and the United Way of Southeast Louisiana, among others. Each brings a different lens, whether that’s work-based learning, practitioner training, youth-led policy advocacy, or support for immigrant and newcomer families.
What’s striking is not just the quality of the work, but how closely it reflects what young people say they need: trusted relationships, clearer signals from employers, practical skill-building, and guidance that feels relevant to their real lives. Many of these organizations are innovating under real constraints, experimenting with new approaches, and learning quickly from what works and what doesn’t.
