Insights form Research: Digital platform to connect the right jobs to the right people

Data insights to help jobseekers make better career decisions 

The EU-funded HECAT project has developed a digital tool offering labour market insights to Public Employment Services (PES) and all citizens, so that they can make informed decisions about skills, training and job opportunities. The tool includes two novel job and career search tools. One links skills to occupations so that individuals can broaden their job search. The other links the job qualities people value to opportunities. As a result, people can balance their job search with realistic and feasible opportunities that best align with their location, skills, occupation and personal goals. The online tool encourages citizens to match job quality data with their skills profile, thus expanding their personal job search outlook.  

Designing algorithms cantered on unemployed people’s needs 

The use of algorithms in public employment services is not a new phenomenon, although studies found that the deployment of such technologies carries a risk of becoming a vessel of social exclusion if not adopted correctly. In response, the consortium behind the HECAT project set out to improve profiling and job matching algorithms currently used by PES. In contrast to most existing tools, the consortium has been working directly with unemployed people to develop their tool. They have involved all users, and especially the unemployed, into multiple co-development and piloting cycles of the tool. 

Would you like to use this tool to make better and evidence-informed decisions about your career and job search? Use it here! 

Background   

The HECAT project is one of the 13 projects showcased in the Cordis result pack dedicated to the European Year of Skills. The projects were funded through Horizon 2020 programme. The pack aims to contribute to an evidence-based debate on the challenges associated with skills development, such as ensuring that skills are relevant to societal needs, matching the aspirations and skill sets of job seekers to opportunities in the labour market, assessing the impact of new technologies and increasing the attractiveness of the EU market to workers from abroad.    

Horizon 2020 was the EU's research and innovation funding programme from 2014-2020, with a budget of nearly €80 billion. The programme has been succeeded by Horizon Europe, with a budget of €95.5 billion, which is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.