Navigating techniques in job recommender systems on internship profile matching: a systematic review
Authors: Poncio Flordeliza P. 
Published: July 2024

Purpose

This review article is focused on the following research questions: RQ1: What are the methods used by authors to collect data in order to evaluate one's profile? RQ2: What are the classification algorithms and ranking metrics used to give suggestions to users? RQ3: How effective are these algorithms and metrics identified in RQ2?

Design/methodology/approach

There are four major systematic review phases being carried out in this survey, namely the formulation of research questions, conducting the review, which includes the selection of articles and appraising evidence quality, data extraction and narrative data synthesis.

Findings

Collecting from primary sources is more personalized and relevant. Embedded skill sets that have a considerable impact on one’s career aspirations could be mined from secondary sources. A hybrid recommender system helped mitigate the limitations of both. The effectiveness of the models depends not only rely on the filtering techniques used but also on the metrics used to measure similarity and the frequency of words or phrases used in a document.

Research limitations/implications

The study benefits internship program coordinators of a university aiming to develop a recommender or matching system platform for their students. The content of the study may shed a light on how university decision-makers can explore options on what are the techniques or algorithms to be integrated. One of the advantages of internship or industrial training programs is that they would help students align them with their career goals. Research studies have discussed other RS filtering techniques apart from the three major filtering techniques.

Practical implications

The outcome of the study, which is a recommendation system to match a student's profile with the knowledge and skills being sought by organizations, may help ease the challenges encountered by both parties. The study benefits internship coordinators of a university who are planning to create a recommendation system, an innovative project to be used in teaching and learning.

Social implications

Internship programs can help a student grow personally and professionally. A university student looking for internship opportunities can find it a daunting task to undertake, as there is a vast pool of opportunities offered in the market. The confidence levels needed to match their knowledge, skills and career goals with the job descriptions (JDs) could be challenging. The same holds with companies, as finding the right people for the right job is a tough endeavor. The main objective of conducting this study is to identify models implemented in recommendation systems to give and/or rank suggestions given to users.

Originality/value

While surveys regarding recommender systems (RS) exist, there are gaps in the presentation of various data collection methods and the comparison of recommendation filtering techniques used for both primary and secondary sources of data. Most recommendation systems for internship programs are intended for European universities and not much for Southeast Asia. There are also a limited number of comparative studies or systematic review articles related to recommendation systems for internship programs offered in an Southeast Asian landscape. Systematic reviews on the usability of the proposed recommendation systems are also limited. The study presents reviews of articles, from data collection and techniques used to the usability of the proposed recommendation systems, which were presented in the articles being studied.