In our latest podcast episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Corey Kossack, the founder and CEO of Aspireship and Orchard.
Corey takes us on an insightful journey into Orchard—a cutting-edge career exploration platform designed to help students and career changers navigate the evolving job market.
From addressing how technology and AI are reshaping careers to the importance of early career awareness, Corey shares intriguing insights into why now is a pivotal time for such a platform.
Tune in to learn about the myriad of career paths available and how Orchard is setting the stage for the future of work. This episode is a must-listen for educators, career counselors, and anyone passionate about workforce development.
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Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Free Quiz: What career outside of the classroom is right for you?
Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Mentioned in the episode:
- Sign up for 7 days of free access to Orchard
- Use code “TCC” to get 50% off of everything at Aspireship
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Episode Transcript:
Hi everyone and welcome back. Today we have Corey Kossack with us. Corey is the founder and CEO of Aspireship and the founder of Orchard. Today we get a deep dive on what Orchard is, how the career exploration platform is shaping the future of work. And how you can get access for yourself or your school. Hope you enjoy.
Elizabeth: Welcome back everyone today. We’re super excited to have Corey Kossack with us. Corey is the CEO and founder of Aspire Ship and the founder of Orchard. Thanks for being here today.
Corey Kossack: Hey, it’s my pleasure to be back on the podcast. Thanks for having me.
Elizabeth: Well, we’re super excited. You know, we’ve heard a lot about Orchard on LinkedIn. there’s lot of information about it out there, and I would love for the teacher and educator community to hear a little bit more about it. So can you just start off by letting us know a little bit about what Orchard is?
Corey Kossack: Sure. So Orchard is a career exploration platform. it’s designed to help people, uh, both students and those that are seeking a career change figure out which career is right for them. Uh.
Elizabeth: Thank you. And you know, you mentioned students, so is there a particular age range or, um, you know, type of student this would support? I.
Corey Kossack: Yeah, I mean we’re, I would say that we’re targeting, you know, 15 to 25, you know, late middle school through, uh, you know, recent graduates, whether it’s college, uh, or high school. and so yeah, all, all through that spectrum. Those are the ones that truly have, a really. Big challenge ahead of them, especially with, uh, how things are shaping up in the world today.
Elizabeth: That kind of leads us into my next so why now? You kind of mentioned some challenges in the world today. What was the reason behind the timing of this?
Corey Kossack: So for starters, I, I wanted to do this actually when we started Aspireship. this is, I think, a, a greater well starting scholarship was a challenge. This is an even greater challenge. and I wasn’t sure if we could pull it off back then. Uh, and so I’m excited, to go at it now. But the reason that it’s really important right now, is AI is really reshaping, uh, the the workforce.
and not just for the reasons that everyone thinks. But really with the advances in technology being as rapid as they are there are fewer people needed to do certain types of jobs. And then there are new jobs that will emerge from this. Um, and whole transformations that take place across virtually every industry.
And. The exact impacts of that are fairly unknown. And so if you think about from, especially from a student perspective, if you’re in school and the people that are running that school and the educators and everything, they uh, have sort of a framework for how they bring people through and, you know. Have you go to college and then you know, everyone kind of has their, their ideas of what the good jobs are and the right paths are and all of that stuff.
But the reality is it’s changing so quickly that there’s no way you could ever keep up with it. Um, and certainly through education, the education system, there’s no way you could ever keep up with it unless you had something like Orchard. That has a finger on the pulse that is current and relevant with what’s going on in the world today, and really covering these new modern careers, uh, in addition to, uh, careers that have been around for a long time, that, you know, still have, uh, plenty of opportunity ahead of them.
So for, that’s the biggest reason on the why now is I see this as one of the, the great challenges, of. Probably this century, uh, in terms of, the supply of certain types of jobs and our own bias, uh, as all of us out there in the workforce or about to be in the workforce, uh, have towards, here are the jobs that are available to me in the path I’m gonna go on, uh, because somebody told me it was a good idea or my parents did it, or whatever.
So yeah, there’s, there’s really a lot to tackle there.
Elizabeth: Well, I’d love to dive in a bit deeper. You mentioned kind of this inherent bias and what these, you know, typical good jobs were. And just recently on the podcast, um, we had a recruiter on, and, you know, she was talking about when she was looking for careers ever since she was a kid. It was, you know, well your parent was a teacher.
A doctor or a lawyer, those three areas are good areas to go into. So I’m just curious, you know, if you have any thoughts about why before now we haven’t seen that shift or that change and kind of, you know, where that bias comes from, where we’re connected to these specific jobs that are good jobs.
Corey Kossack: So I think part of it is, is just generational, right? So if you go back, uh, I’m 41 right now. If you go back to when I was a kid, the internet was just becoming a thing. And so that’s how, like, it makes me feel very old to say that, but like, you know, this is the reality, right? So even the internet is not that old and the internet gave rise to, you know, more access to information.
Social media, which has been around a lot. Shorter period of time than the internet, gave a whole new access to information and perspectives on what people are doing, what’s good, what isn’t, all of that kind of stuff. But it also created a ton of noise. So if you think about all of that, who are you going to take your advice from or take your cues from on what type of career you might want to have.
You know, as you’re growing up, you’re gonna look to your parents, you’re gonna look to any type of family members or extended family or whatever. Um, you’re gonna look to friends and their parents and so on and so forth, right? And so that only gives you exposure to a certain type of. Sets of jobs, right?
And perhaps you might know, you, maybe your parents have stuff are doing stuff that you don’t, you wouldn’t aspire to do anyway. and all that stuff. Well, you still have heard kind of the narrative over the years of, you know, doctor, lawyer, engineer, you know, business executive, whatever, um, that are kind of sought after jobs.
So. I think both of those things play a role in this. and just as a society, we just, I mean, I’m, as I said, I’m 41 years old. I have dedicated much of my life to problems around like this topic area, and yet there are careers that A, I didn’t know existed, and B, for ones that I didn’t know that they existed, I really, truly didn’t understand.
What it was like to do those jobs and be, be in those shoes and what kind of earning potential they have. Like all these things, you have assumptions in your mind about them and they’re not always right. So it’s been a very educational experience, you know, even for, for me, as someone who is very, very focused on this topic.
Elizabeth: Thanks so much for sharing and that awareness piece is huge. I mean, I think, I was listening to an interview on Orchard the other day and the person was saying, you know, I didn’t know about this career until much later in life, and so I. Just bringing it, the awareness to students when they’re in that phase of life, about to graduate, look for a career.
And can you talk a little bit about, you know, when, when you founded Aspire Ship, another part of that mindset was that not everyone necessarily needs to go through higher education to be able to get a job. So tell us a little about, of the variety of careers on Orchard and, and kind of what the different paths are.
Corey Kossack: Yeah, great question. So the idea behind an orchard is that we’re covering the entire world of work. And so what that means to us is eventually we will cover. hopefully every job that exists out there in the world. And when I say every job that exists, I don’t just mean like sales as a job it today, if you go into Orchard and you look in the sales category, you’re gonna see technology, sales.
You’re gonna see pharmaceutical sales, medical device sales, sales for new home builder sales for law firms. Like it goes on and on. Right? And these are very different things. Yes, they have things in common. Being in those shoes, in those environments are, are very, very different things. we’re trying to really bring all of that to life and help people make really informed decisions about what it is they’re going to do with their careers, given its importance, to all of us, um, and how much it impacts, uh, so much across the board.
Elizabeth: When a student goes in to explore the platform, what kind of things are they going to see or gain that might be different from their traditional career day at school?
Corey Kossack: for one thing, we have devised something called the Orchard Method, that helps you actually work through the process. It can be overwhelming, right? You go in and. There’s hundreds of choices, like where do you start? Right? And so we, we made it possible to browse by a career topic, which could be something broad like healthcare, um, or sales or marketing.
I. Or skilled trades or whatever. And as you pick out these, you start by picking, you know, these topics that just naturally appeal to you. Not because a career assessment told you it was the right thing for you, but like, just without overthinking it, that. You are drawn to it. and then within them you choose, uh, a few careers to, to dive into.
We have short form video, long form video, and a bunch of supporting, data that’s continually refreshed. Given that, uh, we’re. You know, there’s much better access to this information, uh, as time goes on. So basically you get to do, all of that, and then you can kind of map the things that you’re naturally drawn to.
If you start with, you know, nine careers or something like that, um, and you narrow down to a couple, then you can sort of map that against your priorities in life, and see if it fulfills all of those things. And many times it may not. Then you kind of have to go back to the drawing board. And so I think the overall, the, the, um, idea behind a lot of these career assessments and resources that have have existed in the past, they are designed to kind give you a quick answer.
And our belief is that. The quick answer is probably not the right one. And I think the evidence of that is the stats, which stats, you know, were gonna vary from survey to survey and all that stuff. But there was this thing like in, I think it was Gallup that said, I. Like 91% of people don’t have a great job and they defined a great job as something that I think they, they would do if they weren’t getting paid for it.
Um, and they didn’t need the money or so, or something like it, you know, fulfills them, uh, and challenges them and they’re supported by coworkers and whatever. just billions of people that do not have a great job and. The levels of dissatisfaction in the workforce, have been growing steadily over the past number of decades, and like that in itself is a problem.
and then the problems kind of keep going from there as you look to, um, you know, all the different things that are happening with displacement in the workplace. And so I generally believe that this is a process that should take some time if. You know, lightning strikes and you’re like, this is awesome.
This is the great thing for me. I want it fantastic. Like more power to you. You figure it out in a week, but you know, this is something that is going to impact your life for a very, very long time. Uh, so you might as well take some time and really understand the options that are out there for you and, and get clear on what it is you want so that you can stay focused on, uh, achieving it.
Elizabeth: That makes sense. And you know, earlier you mentioned a little bit about AI and the workforce changing with the number of available opportunities. So I’d love to hear about some of the careers. That you’ve seen more of a demand for and, and maybe some of the careers that are kind of fading.
Corey Kossack: So that’s a great question. Um, I certainly don’t have the answers on this. Um, I can give a couple of examples of what I see firsthand. So, careers like marketing, maybe even legal, Video editing, things like this, research, like, uh, market research type things, uh, type careers, and many other, uh, things.
In that vein, we see today that you don’t need the same number of people to accomplish the same outcome. That doesn’t mean those jobs are going away and that those positions will be. Completely fulfilled by an AI agent or AI software or whatever. it simply means that the teams of people working inside companies on specific things might be smaller.
You may have a marketing team of one instead of a marketing team of five. So what does that mean? That means there’s four people that would’ve been in the marketing department that are not anymore, right? again, it doesn’t make those careers bad careers. And like marketing will always be needed.
So like these things are very important to keep in mind. But the quantity of available jobs in certain areas, it’s just inevitable that it, that it won’t be, uh, what it is today, um, or what it has been in the past. Um, and we can see that already you know, today as we, we look around and, and see sort of what’s going on.
On the flip side. You have all this, uh, stuff that is new that needs support. So anything around, Engineering, product design, uh, stuff like that with regards to, uh, ai, there’s gonna be a lot of development around this stuff. Uh, and so those are things that are gonna be, you know, more in demand.
Same thing goes with, uh, robotics. So robotics is projected to grow substantially. Then all the while you have these other things like healthcare and the trades that are just not fading in the least. Um, they still have shortages so. Certainly ai, related applications and devices and things like that are going to touch those industries, but, that doesn’t mean that there’ll be, you know, an elimination of jobs or anything like that.
So, you know, this is a, a bit of a touchy topic. and, you know, I’m not trying to predict the future around any sector or any job, but I think the more that you understand. What is changing out in the world today and what people are doing for a living and how they’re doing it. I think the more that you can sort of read between the lines and see, all right, here are things that are never gonna go outta style.
Um, and that’s important to me. So, you know, I, I wanna kind of take the, what I would consider the safer route and like root myself in some of those things. and here are some things that. Maybe are my calling are the thing I’m really passionate about, but I just recognize I’m gonna have to be the best at that because the best people in a certain field that may not have huge demand or huge, you know, quantity of jobs, are gonna be the ones that have the jobs and they’ll probably make a lot more than they would’ve made it otherwise.
they just have to beat out a lot more people for that job. So something along those lines would be the way I’d answer it.
Elizabeth: That totally makes sense, and I’m glad you brought up the. Trades. Um, it just makes me kind of think when my parents were in high school, they had those courses in high school, you know, like metal working, machine working, and then it kind of phased out of the schools and now you, we kind of see that trickling back in.
And then, um, just the other day I was looking for a plumber and, and couldn’t find one. And so you think, wow, like, you know, there, there’s a spot for, for a career right there that’s in demand. So I’m glad to hear that the trades are in there. It sounds like. There’s a huge variety of careers. So for those educators listening, you know, what, how could they bring this to their school if they’re curious?
what does that look like?
Corey Kossack: So we, um, we’ve designed this both to work for career changers and for students. and we do, you know, bring this directly to schools. Um, so we talk to, superintendents of school districts, we talk to principals. Uh, we talk to the, the guidance counselors could be like college counselors or career counselors, uh, within a school.
so really, uh, any kind of, uh, introductions, uh, for our team into, uh, any of those places, uh, is uh, very welcome. Uh, and certainly just sharing orchard organically, uh, with any people, uh, inside the school is one way to do it. the school piece is very important to this and. The reason is even though like there’s ways to reach the masses without it, we really need to, I think everyone listening understands just how challenging it is to pursue a certain career path, be in that career path for a period of time, and then have to take that step back and go, alright, I’m gonna completely reorient my professional life.
You can do it. We’ve helped tens of thousands of people do it. And that’s a, a wonderful and beautiful thing and something that we’re very excited to continue doing. But we understand just how expensive it is, for the individual to be able to do this. Expensive in, in the sense of whether it’s the cost of, The education that they got for one thing that doesn’t apply anymore, or it’s just the lost earnings and lost kind of career trajectory because they spent 10, 20 years in, in something else. it’s a very expensive thing for individuals. it can be a very painful thing, right? Uh, it can cause a lot of, Anxiety, a lot of emotional feelings, and cause a lot of hardship. Uh, that requires a great deal of perseverance to overcome. So those are all things that, um, we have worked for so long to, to help people deal with and obviously we just see it. So many people, want to make a shift, uh, much later down the road.
Um, and, and while that still can be done, um, we really have an opportunity to help, uh, the future generations find the right path for themselves from the start. And that’s an incredibly powerful thing. If you think about what it does for. That person and that person’s future family and all of that stuff, over time.
And also what it does for society as a whole, if you think about, um, people being in the right spots, being satisfied at work and being excellent at what they do. And also, and this is like a hugely overlooked thing, society having the functions that it needs filled, right, because. Part of the problem is that given all of this bias and like the stuff that’s been passed down, everybody wants to pursue the same jobs.
It’s kind of like how so many of the teachers, uh, that I’ve, come into contact with, they’re looking at instructional design or customer success, or maybe sales, and those are all great careers. Awesome. They’re not the only careers. There are so many options and everything has just sort of been narrowed into this like little funnel to these certain jobs.
And then all the others are sort of just completely ignored and. There’s an opportunity to change all of that, and the impact is so tremendous. And so bringing it all back, it needs to be in the schools, because it gives the greatest chance of really equalizing this and really, making this something that, uh, is the norm, uh, going forward and, save people a lot of heartache later.
Elizabeth: And you know, you mentioned how Orchard is current, it’s relevant, so that makes me think, are you going to be continuously adding careers to the platform? Is it something where we’re gonna see, you know, like, oh, maybe there’s a new AI job out there and, and that gets added.
Corey Kossack: You bet. So we’re, we’re never gonna stop. So that’s the goal. Um, it’s not about reaching a certain number of careers or covering a certain number of industries. We also will do multiple interviews around the same career because you could have the same career in different settings, and you have different perspectives on what it’s like to do it.
And so it’s just an, an endless thing. so we are adding. I’d like to say like weekly, ’cause it sets like a good expectation, but we’re, frankly, we’re adding much faster than that. Um, so we’re adding a ton of stuff and it’s gonna keep growing and growing and growing. And with regards to new jobs, like, that’s one of the awesome things like we.
We recently released content, uh, from an AI product manager. so you know, this is something that didn’t use to exist. Product managers existed and so technically this is just a product manager, but they’re focused on AI and the way they think about problems and the way you would have to think about problems and, and finding solutions, is.
Quite a bit different, uh, than traditional product management. So we’re gonna be covering all, all that good stuff and the classic things that you all knew existed, uh, but you never really knew what it was like to, to do them and, and what it took to get there.
Elizabeth: I love to hear that. And for the teacher career, coach community, how do they get access? How do they log on? where do they go for next steps?
Corey Kossack: Yeah, so it’s Orchard Careers is uh. The, the website, uh, for Orchard. but we have, you know, it was really important to us that we made this a big part of the resources that we’re bringing to the teacher career coach community. Uh, so anyone who has bought the teacher career coach course, whether that’s recent or way in the past, gets, uh, free access for a year of orchard.
so that’s. You know, something that we, we do. And so there are, um, there’s a special link, for that. Um, but if you don’t find it either in the email or, uh, in the teacher career coach course, uh, or community, if you don’t find, uh, what you’re looking for, just reach out, to the team and we’ll make sure that, you get it.
And then, um, yeah, going forward it will be, uh, included in everything we do, uh, with teacher, career coach. and anyone who has not purchased the Teacher Career Coach course, um, they can go directly, uh, to Orchard and check it out. yeah, that’s how it works.
Elizabeth: Awesome. Well, I have two more questions for you before we wrap it up, and the next is, is there anything else you’d like to share with the community before we get to those?
Corey Kossack: Yeah. one other thing that I think is overlooked, and it’s something that we’ve chosen to cover, in Orchard, is small business. So I think for many generations you’re sort of taught that, hey, like you go. To school of some kind, and then you get a job of some kind. And while that’s generally true, people at different points in life, whether it’s straight out of high school or it’s, um, much, much later in life, decide to go out and start a business that might be a traditional business like.
A restaurant or flower shop or retail store or whatever it is, or online business, it may be that, or it may be like going out as a solo consultant or solo service provider of some kind with all the skills that you’ve developed, uh, doing things, uh, over these years. And there. This is sort of, you know, I’ve been in small business and, and startups, which are a little bit different, but those two things for my entire life.
And I’ve served lots and lots of small businesses with some of the, uh, companies I’ve created. And it’s such a big part of our society and it is one of the best, paths to earning a good living. for sure. It’s also very stressful and there’s no handbook. so we’ve, we’ve chosen to cover that as well.
Not just general small business, but a whole bunch of different small business owners. and I’m really excited to, to continue along that path. ’cause I think there’s a decent chance that the percentage of, society that like starts a business, um, may go up, in the future.
Elizabeth: That’s very interesting and just, it, it just makes me think, you know, we’ve had a lot of teachers and principals go into consulting, go into small business. Could you just really quickly differentiate between small business and startup
Corey Kossack: Sure, sure. So startup is a term that I think was. I hope this is correct. Born out of the rise of the technology industry. And so it usually refer us to a tech business of some kind. However, what it really is about, it’s about starting something from scratch and growing it quickly. So most startups fail ’cause it’s just insanely hard.
but. for the startups that do, you know, quote unquote make it, they are, uh, growing from zero to a fairly large business, uh, like within a decade. whereas a small business could be anything from, uh, I decide to do consulting and serve three clients a year, and it’s just me, and that’s all I do, and I do that forever.
Two, um, uh, I open a, a yoga studio and I have a staff of 10, and then I open more yoga studios and, you know, whatever. Like you can do lots of things, but, they’re just generally, I. Small and always small. Um, and small is a relative term. Um, you can, a small business can still be very, very profitable, uh, for, uh, the owner.
and, you know, generate millions of dollars in revenue. Um, even millions of dollars of profit and still be a small business. So it’s usually. Defined as I think under 500 employees. Um, and, uh, yeah, a business with 500 employees is a pretty big business, right? so yeah, that’s, that’s the difference.
Elizabeth: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that and with, with all of these interviews here, we love to wrap them up by hearing about what you learned about yourself during this process, creating Orchard.
Corey Kossack: Hmm, that is a good question. Well, I. I don’t wanna keep the audience for too long, so I’ll try and make this brief. Number one, throughout the journey of Aspireship which, you know, orchard is part of, I have absolutely learned, I think, to, to humble myself at like a different level than I was used to.
you know, doing, doing companies and doing, creating new things, it’s a really big challenge. And it takes a lot of kind of blind faith and, belief in yourself that you can, you know, do the things that you’re supposed to fail at because most people did. that has led to a lot of good outcomes, uh, in my life.
But this, uh, one specifically really taught me about the, I think changes how changes in the world, like changes that are bigger than you. Um, that you, you can’t, you can’t fight those. Like they’re just going to happen and they will impact you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you make all the right decisions, if any of those things.
Um, and so just having like a very healthy respect for the, Market dynamics and world dynamics that are, that are much bigger than you is. Uh, absolutely something, uh, that I, I learned about myself. And then also, uh, I’ll say that, I’ve always been someone who is able to persevere and stick through things.
This was one of the most remarkable experiences in terms of getting to a point where you just really, You really couldn’t see a path forward that was any good. Like you really couldn’t and just hung on just long enough to then see, the brightness on the horizon and where we’ve come and being able to do this and bring orchard, out to the world, is something that was very close to not happening.
And the fact that like, just knowing that you can. You can weather those storms and that it may not be a quick process, but like you can get there. it’s an awesome thing to know, uh, especially when there’s so many people that are, are going through struggles.
Elizabeth: Thank you so much for sharing. I love hearing that answer, you know, at the end of these interviews, um, it’s so different for everyone. So we really, we really appreciate your time today, Corey, thanks so much for diving into Orchard and I can’t wait for everyone to listen.
Corey Kossack: Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you all.
