Insights

Mile Wide - Mile Deep

Written by Alison Ettridge | Apr 5

Talent Intelligence and the importance of building a mile-wide, mile-deep skills taxonomy for businesses 

In the business world, taxonomies are used to classify items into categories based on certain characteristics. They can be used to organise data, analyse industry/category recognition, and break down capabilities into groups and clusters. While there are taxonomies for many different types of data, there is no global taxonomy that covers all industries for jobs or skills, which presents a challenge for businesses that want to make comparisons, view gaps, and use data across multiple systems in order to enhance their processes and strategies. 

 The current situation 

Several institutions and companies have attempted to create taxonomies based on a variety of different categories, including Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, but they all have their limitations. In many cases, they are too restrictive and differ country by country and region by region. As a result, businesses are left with several different taxonomies that make it impossible to compare data across different sources. Additionally, because these taxonomies are based on job data and not what individuals actually do, they don’t work at a skills level. This becomes problematic as we move towards skills-based hiring, where the title ‘job taxonomies’ become irrelevant. 

 Stratigens’ solution 

At Stratigens, we take a different approach. We partner with a client first in a vertical market or industry to gain a deeper understanding of the language and terminology they use. We use their job specifications (what the people actually need to do, rather than job advertisements) and parse these for skills, keywords, and titles. The data analytics team then use cutting edge graph technology and machine learning to look at 720 million profiles or individuals globally to collate and cluster skills, keywords, and titles and build this into a skills and title taxonomy. By looking through the supply lens, we are able to look at actual job title, big data, and skills and not advertised job titles (which often make no sense in the outside world) to determine where and in what industry the client’s ‘unicorn talent’ may be found.  

 What are the benefits?  

By building a mile-wide, mile-deep skills taxonomy, Stratigens is able to provide businesses with the ability to search for skills and supply in order to find data on the skills they actually need. This is a major benefit for businesses, as it helps to eliminate the challenge of trying to put square pegs into round holes.  

 In today's fast-paced and ever-changing business landscape, talent intelligence has become a crucial aspect of staying ahead of the competition. Knowing where to find the right talent, how to optimise your workforce, and identifying skill gaps are just a few examples of how talent intelligence can help organisations succeed. This is where partnering with a company like Stratigens can prove invaluable. 

 Here are three core use cases that highlight why partnering with Stratigens can be beneficial for organisations: 

  •  Solving the challenges of finding the right skills globally: Stratigens has a deep understanding of where the skills are in the world. By leveraging their talent intelligence platform, organisations can quickly and easily identify the locations where specific skills are most abundant. This information can be crucial for organisations looking to expand into new markets or set up operations in different regions. 
  • Identifying opportunities for growth and consolidation: Stratigens can determine where to grow and/or consolidate skills in the business based on where the people are and the fully loaded costs. This approach is based on skills taxonomies and helps organisations make informed decisions about their workforce strategy. 

  • Understanding the availability of diverse talent: Stratigens talent intelligence platform enables organisations to identify diverse talent pools and where they are located in the market. This information can help organisations build more inclusive teams and tap into new markets. 

Partnering with Stratigens supports leveraging talent intelligence to make informed decisions about a workforce strategy. Whether it's finding the right skills, optimising business growth, or building diverse teams, and provide valuable insights to drive success. 

Additionally, because Stratigens builds a skill and role-based taxonomy, businesses can use this to support their transition to skills-based hiring. And in a talent-scarce market, skills-based hiring is fast becoming essential.  

What is next? 

If you’re in an industry where Stratigens already has clients (oil and gas, renewable energy, sustainability, technology, investment banking, financial services, telecoms and telecoms infrastructure, defence, engineering, betting and gaming, streaming, broadcasting, medical devices), you can get started on Stratigens within 24 hours of agreement to proceed. If you’re not in one of these sectors, we can still get you live within 24 hours and then we can partner with you, build the taxonomy relevant to your industry, and support your hiring needs.  As we launch v3 Stratigens, at the end of April, 2023, we believe we have cracked this challenge in a game changing way! And as an early adopter, please speak to us about taking advantage of an early adopter discount. 

In conclusion, taxonomies are an important tool for businesses to organise and analyse data. Stratigens solution of building a mile-wide, mile-deep skills taxonomy can help businesses overcome the challenges faced in a talent-scarce market and transition to skills-based hiring. 

For more information, book a demo below.