New jobs portal seeks to reduce job-skills mismatch

SINGAPORE — An artificial intelligence-powered jobs search portal has been launched to better connect jobseekers with career opportunities relevant to their skills.

MyCareersFuture.sg, which will eventually replace the National Jobs Bank, seeks to reduce “missed matches” by recommending jobs that are best matched to the job title, skills and minimum salary desired, indicated by the user.

The portal, first announced by Second Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo during the Budget debate last month, was officially launched on Tuesday (April 17) at the inaugural Adapt and Grow roadshow, which showcased a series of Workforce Singapore’s (WSG) career preparation and matching services.

Mrs Teo had said in March that four in 10 of 25,000 jobseekers placed via the Adapt and Grow initiatives, which seek to help Singaporeans affected by economic slowdown and restructuring, encountered some form of job mismatch. This proportion has grown significantly from just 25 per cent in 2016, she said.

Developed by statutory boards WSG and the Government Technology Agency, the portal uses machine learning technology to scour various job descriptions posted in the Jobs Bank and filter the skills required for each type of job.

The user can then check off the skills he or she possesses and view results of the search, where jobs which best correspond with the skills declared will show up at the top, each labelled with a percentage indicating the extent of match.

For instance, a user who searches for the keyword “accountant” will be prompted with a list of relevant skills, such as “financial reporting”, “budgets”, “account reconciliation” and “Microsoft Excel”, among others.

A search for jobs related to “journalist” will render skills such as “social media”, “blogging”, “new media” and “online journalism”.

The user will also receive recommendations of jobs in other sectors matched to the skills they had provided.

On Tuesday, Mrs Teo said that the new jobs portal aims to provide a “smarter and faster way” for jobseekers to find opportunities.

“New jobs keep coming up, and skills and profiles of jobs are changing very quickly… (the portal) will indicate to you how much of a skills match you have (to your desired jobs). You can then ask yourself, where are the areas in which you can enhance your skills, and how to find the opportunites that will enable you to do so,“ she said.

In the long-term, the authorities aim to link MyCareersFuture.sg closely with MySkillsFuture, an education and career guidance portal aimed at helping Singaporeans chart their learning and plan their career paths.

About 280,000 visitors have used MyCareersFuture.sg since it went live on Jan 2. One of them is 43-year-old Simon Oh, who said it has helped him to narrow down his job search based on his skills.

“I think in the past, I used to throw out resumes all over the place, but that was not very focused and I realised it was not working out,” said Mr Oh, who was let go by his previous firm in the oil and gas industry last October amid corporate restructuring.

Mr Oh, who was trained in mechanical engineering but is currently taking a part-time course in computer science, now has his eye on the technology industry.

Through the portal, jobseekers can also find employers who are open to hiring mature workers, as well as those who are willing to recruit people without relevant experience. They can also filter job opportunities based on location. 

MyCareersFuture.sg is currently available only for jobseekers’ use, but an interface for employers is in the works. It will be up by the end of the year, and allow employers to update the core skills needed and application status for each role more efficiently, said WSG.

In the meantime, employers will continue to post jobs and search for candidates via the Jobs Bank, which is synced to the portal. More than 300,000 jobseekers and 30,000 employers have used the Jobs Bank since its launch in July 2014. It now receives about 44,000 job postings per month.