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Built for trade and technical education

Match students to the right trade programme. Reduce drop-out. Improve placement.

Free RIASEC + Skills Audit screen for every applicant. Programme-placement dashboard for admissions. Employer-readiness one-pagers for career services. CTE concentrator reporting included.

In Brief

JobCannon for Vocational and Trade Schools provides career-fit screening for trade-school applicants and employer-readiness assessment for programme completers. The platform serves plumbing, electrical, HVAC, automotive, welding, culinary, cosmetology, and allied-health programmes. Pre-enrolment RIASEC + Skills Audit screening reduces eight-to-twelve-week drop-out by 20-35 percent in adopting schools by matching applicants to programmes that fit their profile. Post-completion EQ + Conflict Styles + Work Style assessment produces an employer-readiness one-pager that career-services teams share with placement partners. The platform satisfies state CTE concentrator reporting and Perkins V Indicator 2S1/2S2 measures, removing the need for a separate career-readiness vendor. Student-facing assessments are free; programme-placement dashboard runs on Business tier ($199/mo flat) or under a partnership for multi-campus operators.

Where vocational schools win

Three measurable outcomes per cohort.

Pre-enrolment fit screen
Applicants take RIASEC + Skills Audit before final enrolment. Admissions sees a programme-fit score per applicant. Students whose profile does not match their first-choice programme get a counselling call before they pay tuition. Drop-out at week eight falls 20-35 percent.
Programme-placement dashboard
Career advisors see all applicants ranked by fit per programme. They can move borderline students between programmes before week one — a conversation that is impossible after the first month.
Employer-readiness one-pager
On programme completion, students take a 10-minute EQ + Conflict Styles + Work Style assessment. Output is a one-page profile career services attaches to the certificate when sharing with placement employers. Improves first-year job retention.
CTE & Perkins reporting
Aggregate completion and outcomes data exports formatted for state CTE concentrator reports and federal Perkins V Indicator 2S1/2S2. One vendor, two reports, no spreadsheets.

Battery for vocational programmes

Sequenced from application to placement.

Pre-enrolment
Applicant screen
Mid-programme
Intervention check
Pre-placement
Employer-ready

Compared to trade-school career tools

For a vocational school with 800 students per year

$10-18K
YouScience Aptitude
$12-22 per student
$8-14K
TrueTalent Assessment
$10-18 per student
$6-12K
Career Cruising
$8-15 per student
$0
JobCannon
Unlimited, forever

What you get

Free RIASEC, Skills Audit, and Career Match for every applicant and student
Programme-fit scoring across all your trade and technical programmes
Drop-out intervention dashboard at week three
Post-completion employer-readiness one-pager
CTE concentrator reporting exports
Perkins V Indicator 2S1/2S2 aggregate data
Multi-campus support on partnership tier
Quote letter formatted for federal CTE grant funding

Related on JobCannon

Vocational and trade schools are one of twelve audiences on the JobCannon for Business hub; programme-placement tracking across cohorts is built on cohort management, and the programme-quality rollups feeding state CTE reports run on the institutional dashboard.

For Perkins V reporting workflows, the Perkins V 2026 indicators guide covers Sec. 113(b) accountability and the CTE concentrator reporting guide walks through the Sec. 3(12) two-course concentrator definition; for retention work the trade-school drop-out reduction guide is the operational playbook most directors read first.

Vocational-school pricing

Student access and Career Guide stay free. Programme-placement dashboard on the Business tier ($199/mo flat) or scoped partnership for multi-campus operators.

Starter

Try it with a micro-team

$0
  • 5 invites (one-time, not recurring)
  • All 50+ assessments
  • Basic individual reports
  • Share link via email or Slack
  • No credit card required
Request free access

Coach

For independent coaches and therapists

$29/mo
or $290/yr (save 17%)
  • 30 invites per month
  • All 50+ assessments
  • Detailed individual reports
  • Coach notes per client
  • PDF export (client-ready)
  • Session prep recommendations
Get Coach access
Most Popular

Team

For startups, teams and HR

$79/mo
or $790/yr (save 17%)
  • 100 invites per month
  • Everything in Coach
  • Team DNA dashboard
  • Compatibility matrix
  • Conflict-pattern detection
  • Compare 2-3 team members
Get Team access
Recommended

Business

For agencies, L&D and scale-ups

$199/mo
or $1990/yr (save 17%)
  • 500 invites per month
  • Everything in Team
  • White-label PDF reports (your logo)
  • API access (read-only results)
  • Custom assessment builder (beta)
  • Bulk CSV import/export
Get Business access

Enterprise

For 200+ person companies

From $5k/yr
  • Unlimited invites
  • Everything in Business
  • SSO (SAML, Google Workspace)
  • SLA (99.9% uptime)
  • Data residency options (EU/US)
  • Dedicated Customer Success
Talk to us

All plans currently activated manually via the contact form — we review each request within 24 hours and provision access the same day. Self-serve checkout coming once we've heard from the first wave of teams.

Request a vocational-school pilot

Tell us your programmes and your placement goals. We respond with a pilot plan within two business days.

We reply within 24 hours. No spam, no per-seat pitches.

FAQ

How does this reduce drop-out in trade programmes?

Most trade-school drop-out happens in the first eight weeks because students enrolled in a programme that does not match their RIASEC profile or aptitude pattern. JobCannon screens applicants before enrolment with RIASEC and a Skills Audit; programmes with a strong Realistic + Investigative pattern (electrical, HVAC, automotive diagnostics) get matched to students with that profile, while Realistic + Conventional students get matched to programmes like welding, plumbing, or surveying. Schools that adopted this pre-enrolment screen reported eight-to-twelve-week drop-out reductions of 20-35 percent within two cohorts.

What about prior-experience trades like a returning welder or mechanic?

Skills Audit captures hands-on experience and the Career Guide shows credential pathways that recognise prior learning. Many states allow apprenticeship hours or military experience to substitute for early coursework — the platform highlights these. Returning trades workers often discover they qualify for an accelerated certification track they did not know existed.

How does this support employer-readiness and job-placement metrics?

After programme completion, students complete a final EQ + Conflict Styles + Work Style assessment that produces a one-page "ready-to-hire" profile. Career-services teams export this with the certificate to share with placement employers. Employers in the trades respond well to these one-pagers because they preview communication style and reliability — the two soft-skill predictors that determine first-year retention in skilled-trade jobs.

Can the platform handle non-traditional schedules like night and weekend cohorts?

Yes. Assessments are asynchronous — students take them on their phone whenever it suits, results sync to the cohort dashboard. Night-school instructors typically use the dashboard during a single 30-minute group review session at week three to surface students who may need intervention.

Is this used for state CTE concentrator reporting?

Yes. Aggregate completion data exports formatted for state CTE (Career and Technical Education) concentrator reporting and Perkins V Indicator 2S1/2S2 measures. The platform satisfies the career-readiness assessment requirement in most state CTE plans without an additional vendor.

What about programmes our school does not offer?

Career Match recommends the best-fit careers regardless of what your school offers, then highlights which match careers your school has programmes for. If a student matches strongly to a career your school does not teach, the platform recommends transfer or referral pathways. This honesty improves student trust and your reputation with employer partners.

How does this match students to specific trades like welding, HVAC, or CNA?

Each trade in our 2,536-career knowledge graph carries a profile: dominant RIASEC pattern, required Skills Audit profile, typical Big Five (OCEAN) trait fit, and apprenticeship or licensure pathway. Welding maps to a Realistic + Conventional pattern with strong fine-motor and spatial-reasoning skill requirements. HVAC maps to Realistic + Investigative with diagnostic-reasoning emphasis. CNA maps to Social + Realistic with caregiving-empathy and physical-stamina signals. The Career Match output ranks each applicant against your school's actual programme list, surfacing best-fit programmes and flagging poor matches for a counselling call before final enrolment. See /b2b/guides/trade-school-drop-out-reduction-tactics for the full programme-fit methodology.

Does this surface CTE concentrator data for Perkins V Indicator 2S1/2S2?

Yes. For schools running CTE Programmes-of-Study under Perkins V, the platform produces Programme-Quality data that feeds Indicator 2S1 (Academic Proficiency) and 2S2 (Career and Technical Education Programme Quality where applicable, including credential-attainment, work-based-learning, and post-programme placement metrics). Aggregate exports are formatted for the state CTE annual performance report (CAR) and federal Perkins V data submission. The platform satisfies the career-readiness assessment requirement in most state CTE plans without an additional vendor. See /b2b/guides/perkins-v-2026-cte-reporting and /b2b/guides/cte-perkins-v-concentrator-reporting for the full reporting workflow.

How do we integrate this with our SIS or admissions CRM?

JobCannon is the assessment-and-evidence layer; your SIS or admissions CRM holds the canonical applicant and student record. Aggregate exports are CSV-compatible with major vocational-school SIS platforms (Jenzabar, PowerCampus, CampusNexus, Anthology Student) and admissions CRMs (Element451, Slate). Direct API integration is scoped on partnership engagements for multi-campus operators. The Assessment API (Business tier) lets your CRM pull Career Guide records into the applicant timeline so admissions advisors see programme-fit scores in their existing workflow rather than logging into a second system.