'I Know I Can Do the Job, It's Just Putting It Down': Using Personas as a Mirror to Identify Strengths

Work is increasingly shifting away from traditional full-time jobs toward more fragmented ways of working, like gig work and part-time jobs. Yet, employment platforms like LinkedIn often privilege those with traditional credentials and work histories, presenting barriers to those who possess little experience translating informal experiences into a format that such tools expect. To address this gap, we propose a narrative-based approach that enables individuals to recognize transferable skills and practice articulating them verbally and in writing via a group discussion setting. Through a participatory design workshop held in a public housing community, we demonstrate how a cultural-probe and persona-inspired activity can elicit self-reflection, enabling individuals to communicate their strengths. While prior HCI research has highlighted the critical need for reflection in the job search process, little work has been done to facilitate this reflection and translation into employment profiles. Our work addresses this call and informs new design directions for employment technologies.