Competence-based job matching

Competence-based job matching is a method to find the best match between jobseekers and vacant jobs by comparing knowledge, skills and competences of the candidate with the requirements of the employer.

For successful job matching based on skills and competences, relevant information needs to be extracted from job vacancies and jobseekers' profiles, analysed and interpreted. ESCO's structure of three interlinked pillars can help IT systems achieve this. ESCO contains a typical skill and competence set for each occupation and that can be linked to relevant qualifications. It will enable IT systems to transform a jobseeker's work experience and qualifications into a likely set of skills and competences. This way ESCO helps create a more precise picture of the skills and competences of a person that could be used directly for job matching. Based on these conclusions, the IT system can more accurately and transparently match jobseekers to job vacancies or employers to potential recruits.

As ESCO is multi-lingual it can support competence-based job matching across language barriers, as envisaged for example by EURES.