Same Stories, Different Journeys: From Social Comparison to Sensemaking in AI-Mediated Peer Career Exploration

Young job seekers frequently turn to social media to compare themselves with peers and make sense of career possibilities. However, passive feed browsing creates a paradox: the authentic peer content that provides emotional grounding also triggers potentially detrimental upward social comparison and cognitive overload. Previous work has either structured online user-generated content to reduce noise without changing the passive browsing modality, or built AI-powered career exploration systems that disregard authentic human experiences. To address this gap, we developed JobMate, an interactive system that transforms real social media career posts into persona-grounded conversational AI agents, shifting the interaction from passive scrolling to active, personalized dialogue. We conducted a between-subjects study ($N$ = 24, three disciplines) comparing JobMate with native RedNote browsing. Our study shows that JobMate's AI-mediated dialogue redirected social comparison from potentially detrimental upward comparison toward constructive self-reframing, while promoting sensemaking through active conversational engagement. However, users still relied on the authenticity of real peer content for emotional grounding. We discuss design implications for AI systems that augment authentic online user-generated content consumption across social comparison contexts.