SkillsDBvs365Talents
365Talents tells you what skills your people might have. SkillsDB tells you what they can actually do, at what level against what the role requires, and what closes the gap. Inference gets you a map. Assessment gets you proficiency you can act on.
Feature Comparison
About 365Talents
365Talents is an AI-powered skills management platform based in Europe that uses natural language processing to map skills from employee data, job descriptions, and internal content. Their platform focuses on skills-based talent management, internal mobility, and workforce transformation using AI to create and maintain a dynamic skills inventory.
But an inferred skill is a probability, not a proficiency. A CV that mentions Python, or a project description that mentions it, says someone might have the skill. It does not say at what level, who confirmed it, or whether it is enough for the role. That takes assessment by the person and their manager against anchored levels and role benchmarks, and a platform that turns each gap into a plan.
The 2,300 Python Developers
A technology services firm commits to staffing forty people on client AI delivery this quarter. The inferred skills map is impressive: 2,300 employees show Python, and 900 show machine learning, drawn from CVs, project descriptions, and job titles. That is a real signal, and it does not tell you who to put on the first engagement.
In SkillsDB, the AI engineer role profile sets required levels: Level 3 in Python, Level 3 in model evaluation, Level 2 in cloud deployment. The inferred profiles come in as a starting point, and a two-week assessment cycle puts self and manager ratings against those levels. Of the 300 people flagged in the delivery unit, 52 are confirmed at or above the bar. Another 70 are one skill short, most of them in model evaluation, and each gets a development plan tied to that gap.
Now the plan is real. You staff forty from the fifty-two, you know which single skill is the bottleneck for the next wave, and you fund training for that skill instead of a generic AI curriculum for 2,300 people.
Where 365Talents Is Strong
365Talents has built a credible skills intelligence platform around one hard problem: getting a first skills map across a large workforce without asking thousands of people to fill in forms. Its AI detects skills from HR data, job descriptions, and internal content, then keeps that inventory moving as people take on new projects. For a European enterprise with many entities and languages, that starting speed matters. The company publicly documents integrations with more than 100 HR systems, states ISO 42001 and SOC 2 among its compliance frameworks, and reports serving over two million employees across 60-plus countries.
It is also strong on the talent-marketplace side of the category. Matching people to internal jobs, projects, and mentors from an inferred profile is exactly what an inference engine is good at, and 365Talents pairs that with career-path recommendations and skills forecasting. If your problem is mobility at scale in a workforce that is largely knowledge work, and your HR data is rich enough to infer from, that is a real capability, not a demo trick.
Where the Approaches Diverge
Inferred signal vs assessed level. In 365Talents a skill on a profile is an inferred or self-declared signal, refreshed by AI. In SkillsDB it is a graded record: a proficiency level on an anchored scale, who assessed it and how, the date, and, for perishable skills, an expiry. SkillsDB can start the same way, by importing CVs and HRIS data to bootstrap a profile, but the profile then moves into an assessment loop. Inference gets you started. Assessment tells you where you actually stand. See Skills Assessment for the methods and what each is worth.
A map vs closing the gap. 365Talents is a skills map with a marketplace on top of it. SkillsDB is the record beneath the map: a competency framework written in the organization's own terms, assessments against it, gap analysis per person, role, and team, a training matrix that runs on trained dates and expiries, and development plans that target a specific level. Those are the outputs a plant manager, a resource planner, or an auditor asks for. Proficiency Levels explains why the anchored scale is what makes the rest comparable.
Your framework vs the vendor's ontology. An AI-generated ontology is fast to stand up and hard for managers to recognize. SkillsDB builds frameworks with you, mapped to your roles and in your language, because adoption follows the vocabulary people already use.
Security posture. Both vendors take this seriously. SkillsDB holds a SOC 2 Type II attestation, independently audited by Johanson Group LLP, and is GDPR compliant, with SSO and SCIM provisioning. 365Talents states SOC 2 and ISO 42001 among its frameworks and publishes a trust center. Ask each vendor for the report itself.
Who Should Choose Which
Choose 365Talents if…
- Your first problem is an internal talent marketplace across tens of thousands of knowledge workers, and an inferred profile is sufficient to match on.
- You want AI to maintain the skills inventory with minimal manager involvement, and you are not yet ready to run structured assessments.
Choose SkillsDB if…
- Your skills map says thousands of people have a skill, and you still cannot name the forty who can do the work this quarter.
- Training budget is going to generic curricula because nobody knows which specific skill is the bottleneck.
- Any part of the workforce is regulated or safety-critical, where competence has to be assessed, dated, and tracked to an expiry, not inferred.
- Your security review expects a SOC 2 Type II report and your IT team expects SCIM provisioning, and you want both answered in week one.
Running Both
The two are not mutually exclusive, and the sequence is the same one SkillsDB uses internally: bootstrap, then verify. An inferred map from 365Talents, or from SkillsDB's own CV and HRIS import, gives you coverage on day one. Assessment in SkillsDB then turns the parts of that map that matter into graded records. Most organizations find the verified set is smaller and more useful than the inferred set, and that the delta between the two is itself a finding.
Integration runs through the API on both sides. Inferred skills and role data come in, and assessed levels, gaps, and trained dates go back out to the HCM or the marketplace. If you already run 365Talents for mobility, SkillsDB becomes the place where the skills behind those matches get measured. See Skills Intelligence Platform for the five capabilities a platform has to cover and where a marketplace stops.
What to Ask in an Evaluation
- Show me everyone the system says has a critical skill. Which of them can perform it at the level the role requires, and how do you know?
- How is a skill on a profile produced, and can I see the method and date behind any single record?
- Can a manager override an inferred level, and is that override the record of truth from then on?
- Does the proficiency scale carry behavioral anchors per level, and is it the same scale across every skill?
- Is the competency framework written in our language and structure, or generated from a vendor ontology we then have to maintain?
- What happens to a person's skills record when the AI model changes?
- Can I see the SOC 2 Type II report or ISO 42001 certificate itself, and where is the data hosted?
Why Teams Choose SkillsDB
Might Have Isn't Can Do
365Talents infers skills from CVs, job descriptions, and internal content. SkillsDB records how well each person performs against the level the role requires, assessed by the person and their manager on anchored levels. You staff, promote, and invest on what people can do, not on what their documents mention.
One Record, Every Decision
The same assessed data drives gap analysis, development plans, career pathways, certifications, and the training matrix, all in a competency framework written in your own terms. Nobody has to translate a vendor ontology before a manager can use it.
19 Years, Enterprise-Proven
Skills and competency management since 2008, trusted by global enterprises including AXA, Logicalis, Mavenir, and Datametica. Security gets a SOC 2 Type II report, and IT gets SSO, SCIM, and a full GraphQL API.
Trusted by some of the world's best companies
See the Difference for Yourself
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