A platform or interconnected system that matches individuals with employment, career, learning, or development opportunities based on their skills, experience, credentials, interests, and other relevant information. Talent marketplaces are designed to make people's skills and available opportunities more visible and to improve connections between talent and opportunity.

Talent marketplaces are commonly used in two contexts:

• Employer or internal talent marketplaces operate within an organization. They help employers identify and connect current employees with internal job openings, projects, temporary or stretch assignments, mentoring, professional development, and other opportunities. They can support internal mobility, employee development, skills identification, and more effective use of an organization's existing talent.
• State or regional talent marketplaces operate across a broader education and workforce ecosystem. They may connect job seekers, workers, students, employers, education and training providers, workforce organizations, and government agencies. These marketplaces can help individuals identify jobs and career pathways, help employers find people with needed skills, and connect education and training opportunities with labor market demand.

Many contemporary talent marketplaces use skills data and artificial intelligence (AI) to help identify and recommend potential matches. They may also incorporate or connect with skills profiles, assessments, credentials, credential registries, Learning and Employment Records (LERs), digital wallets, career pathways, learning opportunities, and labor market information.

In the United States, a growing number of states are developing talent marketplaces as part of broader efforts to build skills-based education and workforce systems. These initiatives may be developed through partnerships involving state agencies, employers, education and training providers, workforce organizations, intermediaries, technology providers, and philanthropic organizations.

Whether used within an individual employer or across a state or region, talent marketplaces generally seek to improve the visibility and portability of skills and create stronger connections among people, learning, and work.