Today’s job market is moving faster than ever. Roles are evolving, skills are shifting, and hiring has gotten complicated for everyone. At the heart of this complexity is a massive communication failure running through the middle of the labor market, and it’s costing both sides.  

Employers often struggle to articulate exactly what they need, while job seekers find it tough to translate their real-world experience into the right keywords. This creates a persistent translation gap where great candidates and great companies might miss each other. That’s why we’re introducing Skills Map by Indeed: a new way for job seekers to discover in-demand skills and get a clear understanding of what a job posting is actually asking for.

Built on research from Indeed Hiring Lab, Skills Map draws on more than 3,000 skills across 48 categories. Powered by an AI-driven methodology built on Indeed’s own taxonomy, it augments traditional keyword analysis and matching by analyzing millions of U.S. job postings to decipher the exact skills employers are looking for, even the ones they might not explicitly say. This same skills intelligence also helps Indeed better understand jobs and resumes so we can power more relevant matches and better explain those matches to job seekers and employers.

With Skills Map, both job seekers and hiring managers can:

  • Compare skill requirements across industries
  • Explore in-demand skills across the US
  • Discover where skills overlap that may reveal new opportunities

While job titles and responsibilities often vary wildly, many roles share a surprising amount of common ground. In fact, many jobs are built on the exact same foundational skills.  For instance, Business Operations skills appear in nearly three-quarters of postings, across jobs ranging from project managers to pediatricians to plumbers.

However, demand for these skills shifts by location. To see the most in-demand skills, click on any state in our interactive Skills Map to explore a skill category to find where it’s needed most.

Using Skills Map to Guide Your Job Search
This tool helps job seekers and workers make informed decisions about what to focus on in their job search and where they might want to upskill. It gives you a clear way to decode what a posting is really asking for and to understand how your existing skills might translate into roles you hadn’t even considered.

For example, a recent graduate can use these insights to understand that roles in customer support increasingly require familiarity with CRM tools or AI chat systems, helping them tailor both their resume and job search strategy.  By showing where skill demand is highest by location, the tool ensures job seekers can make more informed decisions about where to focus their search.

Hire Faster with Better-Defined Roles
For hiring managers, Skills Map acts as a critical reality check. If you’re hiring for a role and your job description doesn’t reflect how the broader market is defining that skill set, you’re already behind. This tool lets you see what other employers across your industry are prioritizing so you can write clearer, more competitive job descriptions that attract the right talent faster.

For instance, a company hiring for a “project manager” role may realize that other employers are increasingly prioritizing skills like data-driven decision-making or AI-assisted workflow tools. Armed with that data, they can quickly update their job descriptions to reflect market trends, ensure they aren’t missing out on top-tier talent, and communicate exactly what they need. 

Building a More Transparent Labor Market
Having a clearer, shared understanding of skills is critical for both sides of the labor market. Tools like Skills Map can help bridge the gap by making qualifications more visible, comparable, and actionable so job seekers can better position themselves for emerging opportunities, and employers can more effectively identify and communicate what they need. In a job market where roles are constantly evolving, greater transparency around skills is key to making better, more confident hiring and career decisions.

And while Skills Map is available for anyone who wants to explore this data directly, the bigger opportunity is what Indeed can do with this skills intelligence behind the scenes. We’re using Indeed’s skills data to better understand what employers need, power stronger matches, and help explain why a role may be a fit. Our goal is not just to surface useful information, but to put it to work across Indeed so both job seekers and employers can get to the right opportunities faster, with less manual effort.

We’ll keep building on Skills Map as the data evolves. In the meantime, it’s worth bookmarking for next time you’re writing a job description or trying to make sense of one. 

Methodology 
Skills Map by Indeed draws on more than 3,000 skills across 48 categories and 108 subcategories, extracted from US job postings using a model built on Indeed’s own taxonomy and classification systems. Indeed’s skills taxonomy evolves continuously as new skills emerge and extraction methods improve — meaning the data gets more precise over time. Job posting volumes are provided for informational purposes only and are not indicators of Indeed or Recruit Holdings performance.