IM2026 Service Switchboard social share card.
A mobile-first career guide for finding where your skills could fit across the Australian Public Service.
Try the Live Bot: switchboard.bitpixi.com
IM2026 Service Switchboard helps current, non-ongoing and prospective public servants describe the work they can do, not just the job title they have now. Generative AI turns that information into role families, public missions, organisations to explore and practical next steps.
This is an independent working prototype for the Australian Government Innovation Month bot challenge in The Complexity Tamer category.
| What judges are looking for | How Service Switchboard responds |
|---|---|
| Helpful and useful | Turns a vague career question into specific role families, search terms, organisations and next steps. |
| Interactive generative AI | Builds a new career map from each person's experience, interests and practical needs. |
| Clear and practical | Uses plain language and separates ideas into Explore now, Confirm first and Build toward. |
| Safe and trustworthy | Grounds suggestions in public APS sources and tells users what a human or agency must confirm. |
| Mobile first | Uses large text, simple choices, touch-friendly controls and short results that work on a phone. |
Government is large, job titles vary and transferable skills are easy to miss. A person may know they enjoy coding, design, data, field work, administration, finance, economics or cyber security without knowing which APS roles or organisations to investigate.
The bot gives them a clearer place to start. It does not decide whether they are suitable or eligible for a job.
flowchart TD
A["Your experience, interests and practical needs"] --> B["Server-side generative AI"]
S["Curated APS job families and organisation information"] --> B
B --> C["Skills that can travel"]
C --> D["Role families"]
C --> E["Public missions"]
C --> F["Possible paths"]
D --> G["Practical next steps and APSJobs search terms"]
E --> G
F --> G
G --> H["You check live vacancies, eligibility and agency advice"]
classDef person fill:#fff4d6,stroke:#25324a,color:#172033,stroke-width:2px;
classDef ai fill:#dff3ed,stroke:#176b5b,color:#172033,stroke-width:2px;
classDef path fill:#eef0ff,stroke:#6658a6,color:#172033,stroke-width:2px;
classDef check fill:#fbe3df,stroke:#a64f48,color:#172033,stroke-width:2px;
class A,S person;
class B,C ai;
class D,E,F,G path;
class H check;
The response is returned as structured data so the interface can present a consistent, readable career map rather than a long block of chat text.
People can save their results as a clear two-page PDF for later. On supported phones, the bot opens the device's save and share options so the PDF can be stored in Files. The document includes the career summary, transferable skills, role families, organisations, practical next steps, recruiter question and limitations.
Example pages 1 and 2 of one AI-generated Service Switchboard result. Each person's PDF reflects the information they enter.
- Open the live bot on a phone or desktop.
- Choose up to eight work areas that describe what you enjoy or can do.
- Add a short example of your experience and any practical needs.
- Build the switchboard to see skills that can travel, role families, public missions and possible paths.
- Review the suggested next steps and the questions that still need an agency or recruitment contact to answer.
- Spot transferable skills in plain language.
- Explore 20 work areas, including technology, cyber security, data, economics, finance, policy, service delivery, field work and administration.
- Find APS role families and useful APSJobs search terms.
- Identify Commonwealth organisations worth investigating.
- Separate options into Explore now, Confirm first and Build toward.
- Prepare sensible questions for a recruiter or hiring contact.
- All generative AI requests run on the server; no service credentials are sent to the browser or committed to this public repository.
- The site does not store a person's answers. It sends them briefly to the cloud AI service to create the results, so people are asked not to enter protected, classified or very personal information.
- Official frameworks and a curated organisation catalogue ground the response.
- The bot does not claim a vacancy exists or make recruitment, citizenship, visa or security-clearance decisions.
- Every result tells the user what must be checked with the agency or vacancy contact.
- Input limits and structured output reduce misuse and unpredictable responses.
If I extended this bot, I would explore approved APIs for live job boards and public team-lead or recruitment contact details. That could turn a broad career path into a current vacancy or a useful person to contact, making the service more actionable for career switchers.
I would not release that capability without authentication, rate limits, logging, allowlisted data sources and abuse monitoring. Bringing government roles, teams and contact details together could also make targeting or social engineering easier for hostile foreign actors. Authentication adds friction, so it is intentionally out of scope for this simple, low-friction demo.
| Purpose | Help people see where their transferable skills could fit across the Australian Public Service. |
|---|---|
| Intended users | Current, non-ongoing and prospective public servants, including career switchers. |
| Information used | Skills and preferences entered by the user; the APS Job Family Framework; public organisation, citizenship and security-clearance guidance. |
| Limitations | It does not search live vacancies, verify facts about a person or make recruitment, visa, citizenship or clearance decisions. |
| Risks | Generative AI may overgeneralise experience, miss a suitable path or use information that has changed. Users must check current official advice. |
| Tools used | Codex Pro, OpenAI API, Next.js, Lucide icons and curated Australian Government sources. |
The Service Switchboard entry email has been sent to InnovationMonth@finance.gov.au, the address listed for the IM2026 bot challenge. I learned about the Build a Bureaucrat Bot initiative from an APS webinar. The submission included my acknowledgement that this bot is my work and disclosed the use of Codex Pro generative coding AI and the OpenAI API with GPT-5.6 Sol for the bot calls, and included Bot Card text.
- APS Job Family Framework
- Australian Government Organisations Register
- APSC citizenship guidance
- AGSVA eligibility and suitability guidance
Kasey Robinson
Census Engagement Manager for Inclusive Strategies and Engagement in Central Victoria
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
US Citizen. Full Australian working rights.
kasey.robinson@abs.gov.au
Website · LinkedIn · GitHub · Email
IM2026 Service Switchboard is an independent working prototype. It is not an official recruitment, migration, or security-clearance service. It is not official business from the ABS nor the Census. I built it for the contest and in hopes to find a more permanent role on any APS technology or design team.