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Show HN: I analyzed 1500+ job ads to find the most wanted skills by recruiters

Recruiters conflate skills with technologies. Or perhaps the author does. I feel like a skill is something that doesn’t go away if a particular business folds.

This might seem nitpicky, until you’ve had a recruiter ask how skilled you were in JIRA and demands you tell them a story about a time when you used advanced JIRA skills to solve a problem. It becomes a checklist of things that really don’t matter that much compared to actual skills.

Employers, this is also why you can’t find good candidates. They might not have a lot of “skills” in the way they’re being defined.

2 days agoby deepsquirrelnet

Nice one, but you need to provide a context.

1500+ jobs in which location? Which country? Which job titles did you search for?

By the way, 1500+ is a start but insufficient to determine trends. For instance, 48,344 SW jobs were posted in Jan 2025 alone [0].

It is a nice project to learn and show potential employers. Well done.

[0] https://www.comptia.org/content/tech-jobs-report

2 days agoby Oras

It looks like it is only web/cloud technologies.

Only a single mention of C++, and yet, it represents about 10% of GitHub, about the same level as JavaScript. But JavaScript gets 375 mentions.

I also don't see a single skill that relates to embedded software, except C, but C is not just for embedded software. And thinking about it, I don't see much about system programming either (no Unix/Linux?). And nothing about 3D graphics either (OpenGL, engines, ...).

2 days agoby GuB-42

Hi HN!

After recently graduating from college, I set myself a personal project to develop a simple tool for analyzing job advertisements and extracting the most in-demand skills, technologies, and tools for various IT positions.

By automatically scanning and processing data from more than 1500 job ads, the project identifies key skills and technologies that employers and recruiters are looking for.

You can browse various IT positions to explore the skills needed for each, including Frontend, Backend, DevOps, AI/ML, Data (Engineering/Science), Full Stack, UX/UI, Technical Writing, Quality Assurance, iOS/Android, Management, and Cybersecurity.

The project was already announced via Reddit, receiving over 150,000+ views on the launch post!

2 days agoby jurajstefanic

Needs an equivalent list based on CVs/resumes so you can identify unfulfilled needs.

2 days agoby beardyw

C++ is #199 with only one mention, and almost all top skills are front end. Ouch!

2 days agoby Aardwolf

Keep in mind that 50 contracting companies post the same position. You can tell from the wording.

2 days agoby ddgflorida

Nice work, could you be able to add IoT / Embedded area as well ?

2 days agoby zapatistan

The single most wanted skill is how to get by without being hired.

2 days agoby mediumsmart

It seems the most skills with big hits fall into junior developer land. I wonder how many money the would pay for e.g. node.js jobs

2 days agoby Surac

At this point, I don't understand why to separate javascript and typescript, it's one language

2 days agoby renton4code

290 Java mentions but only 59 mentions of Spring?

2 days agoby 725686

Well, 1500 jobs is a drop in the ocean and I wanted to object on the number of occurrences of "C++" (one. one!!, wtf?!).

But I have no counter-example to give because LinkedIn is abjectly useless, shows me 192,518 jobs for "c++ in European Union", where the first ones in the list title "Sales Engineer".

Really, the only reason I'm still on LinkedIn is because everyone is there but boy would I leave the motherfuckers if a valid alternative would show up. It's abysmally bad and I hate it deeply, profoundly and sincerely and I really hope it (LinkedIn) dies in flames and Microsoft along with it.

2 days agoby MichaelRo

Cute but useless.

* 99% of jobs advertised online are fake, including HN's Who's Hiring. They are posted just because some manager wanted to fake growth, wanted to pretend fairness for a position that will be given to patronage, forgot to remove an add posted long ago, etc. Like in online dating, online job postings is mostly a scam.

* The "most wanted" skills are somewhere between the "junior skills that are necessary but not sufficient" and "rat race". They are the skills most likely to be replaced by AI or cheaper workers from 3rd world countries.

I've applied for online jobs, I've been through the pain.

There are only 3 ways of applying to online jobs that preserve your emotional health:

* Use an automated tool like loopcv, Sonara, Jobscan, LazyApply, SimplifyJobs, Massive, etc. Yes, they're crappy. But with enough quantity, quality of application becomes irrelevant.

* let recruiters find you, don't search for them

* look for positions in fora dedicated to specific/niche technologies (e.g.: Reddit, Dischord, etc).

2 days agoby diego_moita

Great project. This unfortunately also tells us that the 'top skills' mentioned on the site are actually going to be the ones which an AI WILL easily displace the jobs of programmers with the following 'skills':

1. Node.js

2. React

3. JavaScript

4. TypeScript

5. Python

6. Java

Would completely avoid super specializing in these 'skills' unless you are the top 1% in them as these employers are extremely selective and expect candidates to be in the top 1% out of thousands of applicants.

2 days agoby rvz

Almost the exact same list as the Stack Overflow stack ranked top technologies of 2024 list.

Frankly: imo if you need a website/tool like this/find this website helpful, you might consider it a sign you need to start thinking about life more generally. :)

2 days agoby neom