How to Build an Internal Talent Marketplace in 6 Steps

As workforce needs change rapidly, many enterprises now rely on Internal Talent Marketplaces (ITMs) to match existing employees with the right roles, projects, and learning paths. An ITM helps match employees' skills, ambitions, and experience with opportunities within the company, from full-time jobs to short-term projects and learning opportunities, creating a culture of development and flexibility. 

The implementation of talent marketplaces is picking up speed. The move is prompted by the requirement to overcome labor shortages, fill skills gaps, and maintain talent competitiveness. This article has provided six crucial steps to create a thriving ITM in 2025. 

What is an Internal Talent Marketplace?

An Internal Talent Marketplace (ITM) is an AI-powered platform that matches employees with internal opportunities based on their skills, interests, and career goals. Rather than depending solely on external hiring, ITMs focus on mobilizing the existing workforce by connecting individuals to stretch assignments, short-term gigs, mentorships, full-time roles, and personalized learning programs.

Key Features of Internal Talent Marketplace

• Skill Assessments and Gap Analysis: Evaluate employee capabilities and identify gaps to drive targeted upskilling and reskilling.
• Employee Profiles and Skill Inventories: Centralize skills, experience, certifications, and aspirations to create dynamic talent profiles.
• Personalized Learning Paths: Recommend relevant learning content based on individual goals and organizational needs.
• Career Pathing Tools: Help employees explore growth opportunities and understand the steps needed to reach desired roles.
• Real-Time Insights: Provide HR and managers with visibility into skill availability, internal mobility trends, and succession readiness.

How Does an Internal Talent Marketplace Work?

An internal talent marketplace functions as a dynamic, AI-powered system that matches internal talent to opportunities based on real-time data. Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how it works in practice:

1. Employee Profiles

Every employee maintains a detailed profile within the platform. This includes their current role, skills, certifications, performance history, completed projects, and future career aspirations. These profiles serve as the foundation for personalized matching.

2. AI Matching

AI Skills Match analyzes employee profiles to connect them with relevant internal opportunities, including roles, projects, mentorships, and learning paths. It factors in current skills, adjacent capabilities, learning readiness, and growth potential to enable smarter talent deployment and career development.

3. Opportunity Listings

Managers and HR teams post available internal opportunities in the platform, complete with role descriptions, duration, required skills, and expected outcomes. Listings are open and transparent, making them accessible to all qualified employees, not just those already in a specific department.

4. Manager Approval

Once an employee expresses interest or is matched with an opportunity, the platform facilitates a structured approval process. Managers review the match and determine timelines, transitions, or resource reallocation, ensuring business continuity and team alignment.

5. Deployment and Tracking

Upon approval, the employee is deployed to the opportunity. The ITM tracks progress, updates skills data based on performance or new certifications, and collects feedback from both the employee and manager. This continuous loop feeds into future matches, creating a smarter, more responsive system over time.

Key Benefits of an Internal Talent Marketplace

• Workforce Agility: Enables rapid redeployment of talent to meet shifting business needs. This improves responsiveness and reduces time-to-fill for critical roles.
• Employee Engagement and Retention: Empowers employees to pursue growth through internal roles, mentorships, and learning paths. This increases job satisfaction and strengthens loyalty.
• Strategic Workforce Planning: Provides real-time visibility into workforce skills and gaps. This helps HR and business leaders make smarter, data-informed talent decisions.
• Cost Efficiency: Reduces reliance on external hiring and shortens onboarding timelines. Organizations save on recruitment costs while increasing internal productivity.

iMocha’s AI-driven Internal Mobility helps enterprises uncover hidden talent, leverage skill adjacencies, and optimize career progression using real-time skill intelligence.

How to Build an Internal Talent Marketplace

Here are the six crucial steps that organizations must follow to create an ITM:

1. Define Your Talent Strategy & Goals

Before starting an ITM, connecting it with your organization's overall talent and business plans is essential. Start by defining the main goals:

• Boost Internal Mobility: Drive employees' movement through roles to keep leading talent.
• Enhance Employee Engagement: Engage employees by offering them clear career path opportunities.
• Fill Skill Gaps: Identify and bridge current skill gaps inside the organization.
• Increase Organizational Agility: Facilitate the rapid redeployment of talent based on shifting business requirements.

Schneider Electric, for example, used its Open Talent Marketplace to match employee capabilities with internal job opportunities, yielding more than $15 million in cost savings from enhanced productivity and decreased hiring expense.

2. Conduct a Skills Gap Analysis

Next, knowing the current and future skill requirements for an efficient ITM is crucial. To learn more about skills, organizations should follow these steps:

• Map Current Skills: Use performance metrics, audits, and surveys to plot present staff capabilities.
• Forecast Future Needs: Work with leadership to anticipate skills needed for future projects and strategic objectives.
• Identify Gaps: Align existing skills with future requirements to identify deficiencies.

Check out the top 15 staffing management tools that help match internal talent to the right opportunities.

3. Foster a Culture of Internal Mobility

A successful ITM relies on an internal movement-supporting culture that values such a system. The following are strategies to develop such a culture:

• Leadership Support: Inspire leaders to initiate and engage with internal mobility programs.
• Transparency in Communication: Periodically share success stories and opportunities within the organization.
• Manager Training: Provide managers with the tools and information necessary to assist their team's career growth.

4. Select the Right Technology Platform (AI/HRIS Integration)

Selecting the right internal talent marketplace platform is crucial for adoption and long term impact.

• AI-driven Matching: Make sure the platform applies AI to match employee skills and interests with existing opportunities.
• Integration Capabilities: The platform should effortlessly integrate with existing HR systems like Human Resource Information System (HRIS), Learning Management System (LMS), and Application Tracking System (ATS).
• Easy-to-Use Interface: An intuitive and straightforward layout inspires employee involvement.

5. Pilot the Marketplace with a Test Group

Before a full release, it's better to conduct a pilot that helps determine potential pitfalls and points of improvement. For this:

• Choose a Diverse Test Group: Use workers from different departments and levels.
• Establish Clear Goals: Establish what success in the pilot stage will look like.
• Get Feedback: Obtain feedback from participants to improve the platform and processes.

6. Scale Organization-Wide & Continuously Optimize

Following a successful pilot, roll out the ITM throughout the organization and ensure simultaneous improvement whenever required. For this:

• Phased Rollout: Implement the ITM into various departments in stages to handle the change smoothly.
• Track Key Metrics: Monitor crucial metrics, such as internal mobility rates, employee engagement, and time-to-fill for positions.
• Continuous Feedback: Continuously collect feedback from users to allow for required changes.

Best Practices for a Successful Internal Talent Marketplace

Jotted down below are some best practices to be followed for a successful ITM:

• Communication & Change Management: Open and ongoing communication is necessary. Initiate in-house campaigns to describe the ITM's purpose and value. Provide managers and employees with training, FAQs, and success stories. Change management must address cultural resistance and promote a growth mindset across teams.
• Transparent Opportunity Listings: Ensure all internal mentorships, gigs, and jobs are open and readily available to all qualified employees. Posts must have clear descriptions, necessary skills, duration, and application procedures, encouraging transparency and honesty.
• Data Privacy and Governance: Safeguard employee data using robust governance processes. Communicate transparently regarding how data is gathered, stored, and used. Uphold data privacy regulations such as GDPR or follow regional guidelines.
• Equity and Accessibility: Make the ITM inclusive and accessible to individuals with disabilities, flexible across languages, and unbiased. Periodically audit the system to provide equal access and avoid favoritism.

Discover the top 8 internal recruitment software that power talent marketplaces and make career mobility seamless and data-driven.

Conclusion

Establishing a thriving internal talent marketplace helps future proof your workforce, reduce hiring costs, and retain high value employees. iMocha simplifies this revolution with its robust AI-powered skills intelligence platform, providing skill assessments, skills gap analysis, and real-time analytics for talent.

By connecting present capabilities to future opportunities, iMocha helps businesses with internal mobility, onboarding talent quicker, and creating a growth culture. 

FAQs

How does an internal talent marketplace work?

Such a marketplace uses AI to match current workers with suitable internal positions according to professional ambitions, interests, and skills. It funnels these into one central source, increases visibility, and facilitates instant talent assignment, enabling agile workforce planning and career advancement.

Why do companies use an internal talent marketplace?

They help companies drive employee retention, cut hiring costs, and make their workforce more agile. By revealing invisible talent and providing internal mobility, businesses can get people into roles more quickly, develop employees at scale, and adapt faster to changes in business.

How is an internal talent marketplace different from a traditional job board?

In contrast to traditional job boards, internal marketplaces concentrate on existing staff. They use AI to connect individuals with learning opportunities, gigs, or jobs. This fluid model helps with career advancement, internal mobility, and strategic talent deployment above what traditional job postings offer.