Content Analysis of Job Advertisements for Identifying Employability Skills

Recently, web-based job sites appear to be the major source of advertisements. However, it has been argued that search engine toolkits restrict wording used to find job skill requirements, which requires clearly defined commonly used terms. This article aims to analyse 16 000 online job advertisements using content analysis to identify current skills required by various professions in order to allow the comparison across countries through time to identify if trends vary in different national markets. In addition, algorithmic approaches to processing data were used to collect, sift, and organize content as well as to improve the efficiency and reliability of the analysis, and to derive a conceptual model of practitioner knowledge, skills, and abilities. Useful insights were given about the skills that employers require, based on online job advertisements from the USA, UK, Ireland, and Hong Kong.