Top 5 Skills Ontology Tools for HR & People Analytics Teams

For businesses shifting towards a skills-first workforce, it’s essential to understand the need for robust skills ontologies. An Economic Graph by LinkedIn has found that skills-based recruitment helps expand the talent pool 6.1x globally by matching skills.

Despite this, organizations are still struggling with quality hiring. According to McKinsey, the acceptance rate is 56%, and the overall hiring success rate is 46% in Europe. This highlights the need for sharper skills intelligence. 

In this article, let’s explore the top skills ontology tools for HR and people analytics teams to standardize taxonomies and bring skill adjacencies to the surface. 

What are skills ontology tools?

A skills ontology is a system or a platform that helps businesses structure, map, and comprehend skills data by creating a relationship between varying competencies, roles, and skills. 

Take this as a skills dictionary and skills map that:

• Standardizes Skills: Eradicates duplication (e.g., Python Programming vs. Python Developer)
• Defines Relationships: Connects emerging or adjacent skills with core ones (e.g., Python → Machine Learning → Artificial Intelligence)
• Supports HR & People Analytics: Allows skill gap analysis, reskilling initiatives, talent mobility, and workforce planning
• Integrates with HR Tech: Several tools plug into performance systems, Applicant Tracking System (ATS), and Learning Management System (LMS) to keep the skills data up-to-date

How Skills Ontology Helps Organizations

As mentioned above, skills ontology helps businesses take inconsistent, scattered skills data and turn it into an actionable and structured framework. Here is how it impacts businesses:

• Allows Skills-Based Mobility and Hiring: Assists recruiters in going beyond titles and matching people to roles based on transferable skills. 
• Drives Learning & Development (L&D): Aligns training programs with skill gaps to ensure employees are upskilled in important areas. 
• Removes Ambiguity: Standardizes skills and languages to provide a transparent view of the workforce capabilities.
• Reveals Emerging & Adjacent Skills: Discovers trending or related skills to help organizations upskill proactively.
• Supports Workforce Analytics & Planning: Offers insights on required vs. current skills to help HRs predict talent needs efficiently. 

Top 5 Skills Ontology Tools

Here is the list of the top 5 skills ontology tools that organizations can use:

1. iMocha

iMocha, an AI-driven skills intelligence platform, uses the latest technology to map, categorize, and validate skills. Creating adequate profiles allows advanced skills gap analysis, role-specific assessments, and targeted upskilling. Some of its key features include:

• AI-powered Skills Intelligence Cloud: Continuously updates skills to help HR predict future workforce trends and skill demands.
• Skills Gap Analysis and Upskilling Paths: Discovers skills gaps in real-time and recommends personalized learning and upskilling initiatives.
• Skills Ontology and Taxonomy Mapping: Standardizes skills data across domains and roles to remove redundancy and ensure appropriate skills categorization.
• Skills Profile Building: Creates a comprehensive view of employee capabilities to help align individual skills with the company’s requirements.

G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (275 reviews)

Pricing: Check out iMocha's pricing here

2. Gloat

The Agile Workforce Operating System of Gloat uses an AI-driven Multi-Ontology Workforce Graph that helps align tech, work, and skills. It develops dynamic skills profiles that boost tailored real-time talent deployment, career growth, and internal mobility. Some of its key features include:

• Internal Talent Marketplace: Matches employees to projects, mentorships, gigs, and roles through inferred competencies and structured skills data.
• Multi-ontology Workforce Graph: An evolving, dynamic skills ontology that maps relations between roles, tasks, and skills using AI to highlight hidden capabilities.
• Skills Foundation: An AI-powered framework that captures, balances, and stores workforce skills in real-time.

G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (34 reviews)

3. Cornerstone OnDemand

One of the primary offerings of this tool is Cornerstone Galaxy, an AI-powered, skills-first workforce agility platform. It helps businesses discover, evaluate, and develop talent through integrated skills intelligence, performance and learning solutions. Some of its key features include:

• AI-powered Learning & Development: Offers a “Learn” functionality that provides tailored learning experiences aligned with performance needs, compliance, and skills gaps. 
• Skills-centric Transformation: Provides a “Transform” suite that comprises Workforce Intelligence, Skill Passport, and Skills Transformation, all of which capture, monitor, and map skills across domains and roles.
• Talent Mobility & Internal Marketplace: Through “Elevate,” it supports internal mobility, recruiting, succession, and performance while matching skills with varying opportunities, projects, and roles. 

G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (9 reviews)

4. Disprz

Another AI-powered platform on the list, Disprz, is an enterprise learning and skilling tool that combines skills intelligence, Learning Experience Platform (LXP), and LMS. It helps with strategic workforce development, real-time upskilling, and hyper-customized learning. Some of its key features include:

• Atomic Skills Model: Offers an accurate, AI-curated skills ontology that helps map skills to roles and proficiency levels.
• Role-to-Skill Mapping & Personalized Pathways: Allows dynamic connections between requisite skills and roles to deliver customized learning journeys.
• Skills Intelligence with Hyper-personalized Recommendation: Combines a significant skills directory, AI, and real-time analytics to recommend personalized learning initiatives. 

G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (79 reviews)

5. PrismForce

A talent supply chain platform, PrismForce, uses a live skill ontology through its SkillPrism knowledge graph. It helps automate profiling, skill-based matching, and skill gap identification, improving strategic workforce planning, internal mobility, and staff agility. Some of its key features include:

• Auto-Profiling through AI-driven Skill Discovery: NLP and AI extract and automatically update skill profiles from different sources, such as code repositories, learning data, and resumes.
• Intelligent Talent Matching & Analytics: Matches talent to demand based on skills to help decrease staffing time and enhance internal fulfilment. 
• Knowledge-Graph-Backed Skill Taxonomy: Helps build a dynamic skills ontology through a knowledge graph created using millions of profiles and job descriptions.

G2 Rating: NA

Conclusion

As businesses choose skills-first strategies, HR and people analytics teams improve at understanding, managing, and using workforce skills through various tools and platforms. With dynamic skill ontology, the above tools help transform static data into actionable insight that leads to agile workforce planning, personalized development, and intelligent hiring. 

Amidst them, iMocha shines brighter with its AI-driven skills intelligence cloud that allows skills standardization and mapping, skills profiles development, real-time gap identification, and more. iMocha offers over 3,000 role-specific skills assessments with an AI-driven taxonomy and analytics to provide an end-to-end view of workforce capabilities. 

This capability makes it a true force for any organization intent on connecting today's skillsets with tomorrow's needs.

FAQs

Why do you need skills ontology software?

These software and tools are capable of standardizing skills data, mapping relationships, and building the best profiles possible for organizations to identify gaps, remove ambiguity, and make better talent decisions.

What are the benefits of skills ontology software?

It allows for agile workforce planning, targeted upskilling, and precise hiring. It creates dynamic skill maps to support a future-ready workforce, diversity, and mobility strategies in various industries. 

Which industries prefer skills ontology software the most?

Skill ontology software is extensively used by manufacturing, healthcare, banking, IT services, and tech industries to address skill gaps, manage talent deployments, and predict skill requirements.