Find Work with Help from an Algorithm: HSE Introduces ‘Jobs and Skills Navigator’
Researchers from HSE University have introduced a new tool to assist in building career paths and navigating today’s job market—the Jobs and Skills Navigator. This service algorithmically ranks available vacancies and the corresponding professional skills in the context of current labour market requirements. It aims to simplify the identification of competencies needed for mastering a new profession and streamline interactions between employers and job seekers.
The project was presented at a joint scientific seminar of HSE University’s strategic project ‘Success and Self-Sustainability of the Individual in a Changing World.’ The session was moderated by Evgeniy Terentev, Director of the HSE Institute of Education, who noted that the authors have continued last year’s work on studying IT-sector job vacancies and skills.
HSE Deputy Vice Rector and Senior Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Labour Market Studies Pavel Travkin revealed that the Jobs and Skills Navigator was developed based on in-depth analysis of 35 million vacancies across 1,522 aggregated professions from major job platforms between 2021 and March 2024. The navigator's primary goal is to identify current labour market needs.
An essential aspect of the project involves identifying major companies' skill requirements while considering shifts in educational preferences among young people
Increasingly, young individuals are opting for vocational education, focusing on professions that offer high salaries at the start of their careers.
The navigator aims to improve employer-applicant communication, optimise job searches, and streamline candidate selection processes.
Co-presenter Petr Parshakov, Head of the International Laboratory for Intangible-driven Economy at HSE University (Perm), emphasised the importance of analysing the correlation between specific skills, professions, and competencies that lead to the highest salaries.
The study analysed vacancies from platforms such as hh.ru, Avito.ru, and Rabota Rossii. One key challenge was the diverse terminology used to describe identical professions. The results underscore the importance of data standardisation for more accurate analysis, as well as the need to account for linguistic and spelling variations in labour market research.
Advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques, including RuBERT and Sentence-BERT, were used to process job descriptions
This allowed for terminology standardisation and the identification of over 1,500 unique specialisations across 32 professional domains. Additionally, the Mistral 7B language model, featuring 7 billion parameters, was fine-tuned to extract relevant skills.
A key stage of the study involved evaluating the ‘value’ of skills in the labour market. For example, salary differences were analysed among professionals in the same field but with varying competencies (eg, foreign language proficiency or programming skills).
Specialised technical skills, such as knowledge of drilling technologies, and managerial competencies turned out to yield the highest salary premiums
As Petr Parshakov clarified, the web application allows users to explore the set of professional and soft skills required for a specific profession, as perceived by employers. It also enables users to determine the skill premium and find out where these skills can be acquired, including by following a link to relevant continuing education programmes at HSE University.
The discussion following the presentation highlighted the broad potential of the study and the skills navigator.
Hadi Saleh, Associate Professor at the HSE’s Faculty of Computer Science School of Software Engineering, noted that this development is in demand not only in Russia, but globally, as labour shortages are prevalent in many countries. He highlighted the importance of categorising vacancies by qualification levels and refining professional groups requiring a mix of fundamental knowledge, applied skills, and credentials like diplomas and certificates. He also encouraged job seekers to explore HSE’s educational programmes.
Pavel Travkin added that while fundamental knowledge (eg, math and algorithms for programmers) is essential in some professions, job listings mainly focus on skills frequently mentioned by employers.
HSE University Deputy Vice Rector Elena Kozhina participated in the discussion, emphasising the importance of expanding the navigator's capabilities.
Summing up the seminar, the speakers thanked the discussants and participants for their valuable feedback. Evgeniy Terentev emphasised the need to unify the language and terminology used by employers and job seekers, particularly students. For example, he pointed out that the navigator lacks vacancies for political scientists and philosophers. ‘This issue deserves attention and could become a focus for further research and applied development,’ he added.
In conclusion, the Director of the HSE Institute of Education highlighted: ‘It is very important that we not only discussed the current results, but also outlined directions for future work.’