Transforming Federal Job Data

Challenge

The U.S. federal job market is vast and complex, presenting significant challenges for both job seekers and hiring managers. Each year, hiring managers process over 20 million applications. While job information is available to applicants, it's not optimized for reuse or for generating broader insights. This has contributed to a confusing and frustrating job search and application process for job seekers and a lack of visibility and insights into job market data across government agencies.

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After exploring this data for a Citizen Codex story, we quickly realized its potential for a more comprehensive solution. The challenge lay in creating a robust backend to routinely pull and store this information, coupled with an intuitive frontend that would allow users to easily digest and interact with the data.

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Impact

To address these challenges, we developed GovSkills, a platform designed to transform how federal job data is processed and utilized. Our approach focused on building a cost-effective infrastructure that could automatically download, structure, and provide access to data from approximately 2.5 million job postings.

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The resulting dataset and infrastructure open up expansive options for future research and enable a variety of analytical tools to provide insights into the U.S. federal job market. By transforming raw job posting data into structured, easily accessible information, GovSkills aims to streamline the federal job application process and provide valuable market insights. As the platform continues to evolve in its beta phase, it promises to be a valuable tool for anyone navigating the complex landscape of federal employment.