Work Source Maine

The Challenge

The Maine Department of Labor (DOL) fosters, facilitates, and regulates the relationships between Maine businesses and private citizens, particularly in their roles as current or prospective employees. Organized into seven divisions ( the bureaus of Employment Services, Labor Standards, Rehabilitation Services, and Unemployment Compensation, plus the Center for Workforce Research and Information, the Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, and the State Workforce Board) the DOL operates programs to help workers build competitive skills. They also support individuals when jobs are lost, ensure safe and fair workplaces, provide labor market research, and help people with disabilities to achieve their career goals.

In late 2022, the Bureau of Employment Services issued an RFP for a new virtual job center.The web portal would expand statewide outreach by better serving rural jobseekers and employers and improve service delivery through modern, user-friendly technology.

Our Approach

To meet the RFP requirements, our team proposed implementing CiviServ, a Drupal-based product we have been evolving for more than a decade to provide a rapid, low-risk delivery of core functionality. During the term of contract performance, we worked closely and continuously with the State Workforce Board to provide all necessary project management, business objective analysis, concepting and visioning, stakeholder engagement, user research (interviews and focus groups), governance planning, interactive prototyping and testing, visual design, technical engineering, technical development, and quality assurance. In February 2025, we completed Phase One of Maine’s new labor market suite, a centralized virtual front door connecting job seekers and employers to statewide employment services, resources, and labor market information.

We simultaneously began work on Phase Two, which expands the platform with career pathway exploration tools, including:

• Training library aligned to high-growth industries
• Enhanced guidance through AI-enabled
• Personalized user experiences

The Result

Phase Two, the Work Source Maine portal, launched in December 2025. It provides an integrated catalog of statewide training opportunities, so as to enable users to discover relevant programs and build personalized, actionable pathways toward career growth. Through the portal, job seekers are offered assistance in a variety of respects: to start a career, make a career change, learn about Maine industries, and get industry-specific training to advance personal prospects. The implementation includes a special emphasis on career messaging for the healthcare industry, due to a statewide shortage of qualified staff in the healthcare domain. The portal furthermore supports recruitment objectives for all markets/industries within the state.