Khoury News
Class project to real-world tool: AI Career Coach Pro helps students build resumes, interview for jobs
As Disleve Kanku searched for a job in a tight market, he wanted a way to test his own resume. Now the resulting tool, an AI-powered virtual career coach, can do so much more to aid job seekers.
Disleve Kanku, a recent graduate of Khoury College’s master’s in data science program, put his skills to immediate use by creating a large language model called AI Career Coach Pro. The program scans a user’s resume and provides tools for career-building, such as career and salary insights, interview question practice with feedback, and a portfolio builder, which helps users structure and showcase their projects to attract recruiters.
Having grown up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kanku understands the importance of education to help improve people’s lives.
“I’m passionate about education,” he says. “I’m from a place where not everyone has access to these opportunities.”
While attending Kansas State University for his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, Kanku involved himself in the bioinformatics lab, where he learned to code in Python.
“Once I gained that interest, I saw so much potential,” he recalls. “Coding can be involved in any field.”
And when Kanku decided to apply for graduate school, Northeastern was high on his list.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Boston to study, and when I was accepted, I didn’t think twice,” he says.
But as he approached graduation, Kanku was having a hard time finding the right full-time job in a tight job market. Wanting a way to test his own resume, and needing a project idea for a class on large language models, Kanku began developing AI Career Coach Pro. He describes it as a virtual career coach that helps students plan their careers, prepare for interviews, and “put them on the right path for their future based on what they want to do and achieve, and in a better place for the job market.”
It worked well enough for Kanku, who landed a data engineer role at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in February 2024. Since then, he has won multiple awards for making the institute’s data more transparent, usable, and integrated.
“I focus on building ETL pipelines to streamline data integration across systems,” Kanku says. “My work primarily involves Snowflake and Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services to enhance data accessibility and usability. I’ve also worked on optimizing workflows for real-time data processing and improving how the institute manages and analyzes critical health care data.”
In addition to his work on AI Career Coach Pro and at Dana-Farber, Kanku is the co-founder of Vibie.AI, an AI-powered music curation platform.
“Vibie.AI dynamically adapts to the atmosphere of any venue by analyzing crowd behavior, mood, and preferences in real time,” he says. “Whether it’s a lively bar, a chill cafe, or a high-energy gym, the platform crafts the perfect playlist to enhance the experience.”
Kanku hopes that AI Career Coach Pro can help other students refine their skills before interviews. He describes a feature that allows a user to find resources to study and prepare for specific roles, such as data science engineer.
“You can tap a skill like Python or SQL and it will provide a list of online resources,” he explains.
Another feature generates 15 interview questions based on the job role and provides real-time feedback on the user’s answers.
Next steps include scaling and optimizing the tool. Kanku is in discussion with Northeastern University to see if it can help prepare students for co-op and give them an advantage.
“I plan on deploying the beta version at Northeastern,” he says. “I want to refine the tool and make it work here first.”
In the long term, Kanku wants to grow the platform, as well as his involvement with AI. As an advocate of ethical AI, he believes everyone should have access to these tools.
“There’s a disparity, and I want to bridge the gap and keep growing as an AI engineer,” he says.
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