The project aims at developing a coherent research and consulting strategy for the research area Personnel Economics within the department Labour Markets, Human Resources and Social Policy. The existing expertise in empirical research and in the evaluation of personnel management practices will be used to provide scientifically based business consulting in order to develop a new line of funding for the research group. The project covers three main topics: the effects of Human Resources Management (HRM) on career paths, monitoring and recruiting of skilled labor, as well as HRM possibilities of fostering innovation. Methodologically, we will utilize personnel records of firms as well as representative employer-employee-data sets. In detail, the project consists of three modules. First, newly available integrated employer-employee-data will be used to analyze career paths. Moreover, we will use additional company data to complement this analysis. Second, we will invest into methods and data for monitoring and forecasting university graduation rates as well as the availability of skilled labor. Third, an existing survey is expanded to analyze the effects of HRM on the innovativeness of firms.