# Using search to guess job categories in FINN småjobber

DevFeed: [Using search to guess job categories in FINN småjobber](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/category-guessing-32012.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tech.finn.no2017/02/02/category-guessing/>)

Author: Tor Arne Kvaløy

Published: 2017-02-02T14:14:30Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Finn.no](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/finn-no.md>)

Topics: [Machine learning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/machine-learning.md>), [datasets](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/datasets.md>), [Forms](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/forms.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>)

Tags: [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [forms](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/forms.md>), [machine-learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/machine-learning.md>), [search](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/search.md>), [supervised-learning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/supervised-learning.md>), [user](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/user.md>), [using](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/using.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains how FINN småjobber explored automatically guessing job categories from user-submitted titles. Although supervised machine learning was considered, the team used existing indexed job data and normal search to rank likely categories.

## Source excerpt

The problem Making it easy to fill out forms is essential for getting data into our system at FINN småjobber, which is a service to get help with tasks like house cleaning or renovation, where the user submits a job that non-professionals bid on. Submitting a job is done by filling out a form with a title, a short description, and selecting the category the job belongs to. The category hierarchy has two levels: a main category and a subcategory. For example the main category domestic help, has the subcategories cleaning and babysitting. There are 6 main categories and 26 subcategories, and our assumption was that it was a hassle for the user to go through this long list. We wanted to simplify this by guessing the category. Ideally on the given title. The solution Machine learning A typical solution to this kind of problem is to use machine learning, where the goal is to classify job titles into categories. We had a large set of historical data (130 000 registered jobs) where category already was selected by the user. This was a good starting point for a type of machine learning technique called supervised learning. In supervised learning historical data is used as a training set, and results in a classifier that can classify job titles into categories. Delving into the field of machine learning is quite a complex task, and requires both theoretical understanding and knowhow of various software libraries. And in many cases, it requires access to a special machine learning infrastructure. So, as a lean product development team with limited resources we looked for an easier solution. Good old search Search was a sentral part of our service. All the jobs were indexed, and we had all the necessary libraries and infrastructure for this. So, what about using normal search to find the category? A simple search on the title "Cleaning kitchen", gave the following ranked results: Match rank Category 1 Renovation 2 Cleaning 3 Cleaning 4 Renovation 5 Cleaning 6 Cleaning 7 Cleani