Feature
Employees with skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing are rare birds in today's labor market, with nearly half of executives (46%) saying it’s very or extremely difficult to find the right talent, according to a recent G-P survey of 2,000 global executives.
At the same time, employees are seeking opportunities for internal mobility and upskilling within their organizations, with 64% of employees believing their companies should upskill existing employees before seeking talent externally, according to an LHH survey of 30,000 employees worldwide.
Talent marketplace platforms can help solve both of these challenges. Talent marketplaces use AI to help companies close the skills gap by matching employees with internal projects and job openings that align with their skills. Many of these platforms also offer career development opportunities based on an employee’s career goals, giving workers clues about what skills they should develop and grow.
"As businesses shift toward becoming more skills-based, talent marketplaces have emerged as popular solutions to connect employees with opportunities that match their unique abilities,” said Ashley Litzenberger, senior director of product, brand and content marketing at Betterworks.
How Talent Marketplaces Helped 3 Companies Increase Internal Mobility
Government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton introduced a talent marketplace two years ago to help address skills gaps related to emerging technologies. In 2023, that marketplace helped fill 18% of its open positions with internal employees, said John Grumbine, the company’s director of talent intelligence and technology enablement.
“When you're on the cutting edge, there aren't large, easy-access pools of talent, so we've really focused our talent marketplace on building the skills internally, connecting people to roles, and connecting across our talent ecosystem,” Grumbine said.
Telecommunications technology firm Amdocs also introduced a talent marketplace two years ago. Amdocs saw a 49% internal mobility rate for 2023, and the firm’s internal mobility rate is approaching the same level so far this year, at 45%, said Victoria Myers, the company’s global head of talent attraction.
Amdocs commissioned a study of 500 full-time U.S. workers who use GenAI before launching the platform. A majority of respondents (88%) felt it would be extremely helpful to have access to an AI-powered recruitment tool that can match employee skill sets to open roles and help workers to understand what training is required to reach their career goals, Myers said.
Meanwhile, one-third of Mastercard employees who took part in a career opportunity they found on the company’s talent marketplace made an internal career move, said Lucrecia Borgonovo, Mastercard’s chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer.
Related Article: Internal Mobility Can Relieve Today’s Tech Recruitment Pressures
Looking Beyond the Skills Gap
Talent marketplaces help in more ways than closing the skills gap. Here are three critical ways in which they can also help HR teams:
1. Anticipating Future Needs
Talent platforms offer firms real-time analytics, allowing them to get a better understanding of what skills exist across the organization and where there are potential gaps, Borgonovo said. They also allow the company to anticipate skills that might be in future demand and provide training now to close — and even prevent — a gap in the future.
“One of the areas where we saw a great deal of emergence and future work was around artificial intelligence, so we have made investments in training and upskilling to build a workforce of workers who are highly skilled in AI,” Grumbine said.
2. Accessing Broader Talent Pools
A talent marketplace allows managers to search internally for special skills and talent beyond their team or the employee pool they typically have access to, Grumbine said.
“It opens up talent pools to managers that they may not previously have had access to or know.”
3. Providing Greater Career Ownership
Talent platforms provide transparency and equitable access to opportunities as well as visibility on what skills are in high demand and will be in future demand. Team members have access to opportunities in other business units and locations, allowing them to decide which projects, mentorships or opportunities to pursue, Borgonovo said.
“In essence, we’ve democratized access to these opportunities,” she said.
Related Article: From Ladders to Lattice: How Careers Can Engage and Retain Employees
3 Steps to Unlocking Talent Marketplaces’ Potential
Of course, there are limitations. Simply offering a talent marketplace won’t close the skills gap; your employees and managers also need to use it.
To ensure you reap the full benefits of talent marketplaces, it’s imperative to offer managers and employees training and support if they want their talent platform to have a sustainable and beneficial effect on closing the skills gap, Grumbine said.
Here are three best practices for making the most of a talent marketplace:
1. Embrace Skills, Not Roles
Successfully implementing a talent marketplace will require a fundamental change in how your organization views talent, Myers said.
Conference
Sep
16
HR Tech Conference Las Vegas 2025
Register
Conference
Oct
27
Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
Before introducing its talent marketplace, Amdocs focused on shifting the organization from being role-based to being a skills-powered organization. Instead of focusing on employees’ roles and experiences, Amdocs now places skills at the center of its talent management and development — a shift that required Amdocs to systematically map out all the critical skills that are required for every role across the company.
Related Article: Why Skills-Based Hiring Is More Dream Than Reality
2. Employee Engagement Is Essential
To be effective, talent marketplaces require certain employee data that enables the platform to provide personalized insights on upskilling and development opportunities tailored to current roles and future career aspirations, Myers said.
“For the marketplace to function effectively, employees have to update their profiles, validate their skills and be transparent about what their future goals are,” she says. To encourage employees to use the platform, Amdocs managers incorporated the tool into the firm’s six-month review process.
At Mastercard, 90% of employees have registered with the platform, and about 40% actively engage with it monthly, Borgonovo said. Mastercard’s talent marketplace will recommend opportunities based on the employee’s profile, which includes past experiences and jobs, current skills and desired areas of growth. “Employees can upvote or downvote opportunities, and the AI will learn their preferences to present more tailored suggestions,” she said.
3. Managers Must Support Internal Mobility
While many managers understand the potential benefits of a talent marketplace, they often worry about losing their top performers to internal mobility, Grumbine said. “A big focus on our journey with the talent marketplace has been around helping to build the culture around internal mobility and managers supporting employees as they move through different roles in their careers,” he said.
To help alleviate concerns about losing top performers and to prevent talent hoarding among certain teams, Mastercard reminds its managers that talent and skills are an enterprise-wide asset. “In return, these leaders also have access to new and different talent as well, helping them deliver on their own objectives,” Borgonovo said.
Internal research by Amdocs revealed that when an employee applies for a role and doesn’t get it, that employee is more likely to leave the company, Myers said. “This data was instrumental in helping managers understand the importance of supporting internal mobility,” she said. “By encouraging employees to explore opportunities within Amdocs, we retain that valuable talent rather than risk losing them to external competitors.”
