Which learning outcomes should I acquire? A bar chart-based semantic system for visually comparing learners’ acquirements with labor market requirements

The ability to plan a training path fulfilling working needs plays a key role, when it comes to finding the desired job. Nonetheless, in a dynamic scenario characterized by frequent technological innovations and economic changes, as the present one, getting a clear picture of the requirements of the world of work could become difficult, as it would imply performing a deep periodic evaluation of available job offers, and matching them with own previous experience. Intelligent systems able to automatically match résumés with job offers already exist, but they are mostly targeted to recruiters, instead of learners. This work aims at filling this gap, by presenting a system for comparing learners' acquirements - expressed in terms of learning outcomes - with companies requirements. The proposed system relies on semantics for processing natural language texts and exploits bar charts to visualize learning outcomes and their levels in order to quickly depict similarities and differences between résumés and job offers. An evaluation, conducted on 50 volunteers, underlined the added value of the system.