How a major consumer goods company is tapping the full potential of job applications – SAP SuccessFactors

How a major consumer goods company is tapping the full potential of job applications – and SAP SuccessFactors

Search! & Match! in SAP SuccessFactors

Find the best talent with Textkernel’s AI matching – easily and efficiently, externally as well  as internally. Discover how Textkernel, together with our partner projekt0708, makes SAP  SuccessFactors more powerful.

About the Company

Our customer is a global consumer products company providing cosmetic and skincare products, amongst others. Headquartered in Germany with over 20,000 employees, the company generates annual sales of over €7 billion.

The task

Too many applications, too little support

Each job posting would result in thousands of candidate  applications. Processing these became an almost impossible  task, especially in our customer’s Asian offices. The recruiting  departments couldn’t cope with the flood of applicants due to volume and limitations in their recruiting software.

Our customer  urgently needed a strong technology solution that would allow recruiters to filter out the best candidates for the job quickly and efficiently. In addition, the technology needed to seamlessly  integrate into SAP SuccessFactors, the in-house HR system  used by our customer.

Finding in-house talent

There’s a lot of untapped talent in large companies, though identifying and keeping track of this talent can be difficult. That  was our customer’s second goal, leveraging in-house talent to reduce the number of job postings. At the same time this  approach gives employees the opportunity to develop further and, therefore, a reason not to leave. An easily searchable talent  pool is a prerequisite for strategic and structured talent management. 

The solution

SAP SuccessFactors: even smarter with AI support

Using AI support for recruiting is still relatively new, especially in Germany. Despite this, our customer immediately identified  the many advantages of Search! & Match! technology. Even when working with large data sets, Textkernel’s solution detects  matches with high accuracy. It automatically compares thousands of candidate and employee profiles. In addition, the technology  works in 23 languages (with more being added all the time).  

Another important factor in choosing Textkernel was security, which we guarantee through compliance with the ISO 27001 for  data protection. The opportunities for integration with SAP SuccessFactors were another key factor in our customer’s decision to  use Textkernel. This makes it one of the early adopters to benefit from AI technology in SAP SuccessFactors.

The results

Process incoming applications efficiently

Recruiters can now automatically match incoming applications with complete job requirements. In this way, even when faced with a flood of applicants, they can identify the candidates who have the skills and experience they are looking for. The basis for this functionality is a candidate and job index that we built together with the customer and which is automatically updated and extended.

It’s very important for our client to be able to identify which candidates are particularly well suited to a vacant position as quickly and easily as possible. Match! from Textkernel in SAP SuccessFactors does just that by automatically ranking the most suitable applications.


From within Textkernel’s matching environment, recruiters can seamlessly continue workflows in SAP SuccessFactors (“action back”). For example, the selected candidates can be placed on a long or short list.

Fill other vacancies more easily

Interesting profiles can be matched with all other vacancies in the company. In this way, candidates with a profile that’s in demand (such as Engineering, IT, etc.) can be recruited by the company even if they are only the second choice for the position
that was originally advertised. Textkernel also ensures seamless transfer of candidates to other recruiters.

Another plus: The candidate decides for themselves which other positions (worldwide, regional, only for the position in question) their profile should be considered. We have adopted this data protection standard from SAP SuccessFactors specifically for Textkernel matching.

Fill jobs via your own talent pool

Using the “Source Candidates” functionality, recruiters can proactively match jobs and candidates. This allows them to match the complete talent pool with the job description – even before it is advertised. Or when it comes to positions for which only a few applications are normally received. The HR team can also easily see which internal employees are eligible and can then approach them directly. A nice contribution to internal mobility and high employee satisfaction in the company.

The Project manager

“Mastering this large and comprehensive integration with SAP SuccessFactors required close cooperation and coordination with our customer. Since SAP SuccessFactors was introduced at the same time as our AI implementation, our work depended heavily on the customer’s processes.
A key part of our success was flexibility; whenever multiple systems are incorporated at the same time it’s important to be able to react to unexpected outcomes. The result of this project was a close bond between Textkernel and our client, with significant growth for both parties.”

Hasan Yilmaz, Senior Project Manager at Textkernel.

About Textkernel

Textkernel works with over 1,000 HR and staffing organizations worldwide to bring the latest in artificial intelligence technology to our customers’ fingertips. We work with companies across multiple industries delivering multilingual parsing, semantic search and match, and labor market intelligence solutions.

Successful Story

Download the customer case here