In Search of Digital Talent: Evidence From Public Sector Job Ads

Becker, Till; Koddebusch, Michael

Abstract

The public sector continues to struggle with the digital transformation of its organizations, lagging behind the private sector in implementing digital processes and services. A key success factor is the availability of appropriate digital skills in the workforce. This can be enhanced by training existing staff or hiring skilled individuals. In the latter scenario, the hiring process must focus on the required competencies. Typically, job advertisements are used to communicate job requirements. his article explores the presence of digital competencies in job ads of German public organizations. We operationalize the DigComp~2.2 framework as a category system to identify required digital competences in these job advertisements. To assess a large volume of job postings, we employ a Large Language Model (LLM) for categorization. In this way, we are able to process 5,949 job advertisements. Results indicate frequent mentions of skills related to digital content creation and data handling, while communication, problem-solving, and safety are rarely highlighted. Although the reasons for this are not explicitly identified in our study, a mismatch is evident between the push for digital transformation in the public sector and the recruitment practices reflected in job advertisements.