As is the tradition at the end of the summer, Textkernel organised its annual innovation week for the third time. Taking place at its Amsterdam headquarters, the event was the occasion for the Textkernel team to focus exclusively on the development of new and innovative products and processes. With teams comprising members of different departments, the innovation week was also a good opportunity to build stronger links and synergies among colleagues.
Eight motivated teams
Competing against each other, the eight teams had just five days to develop a project that not only proved innovative but also would be judged on the quality of its prototype and its business value. Invited to participate this year, a group of engineers from the CareerBuilder team were able to easily integrate and contribute their knowledge to several projects.
A hodge-podge of great idea
With limited time and resources, each team was able to develop ideas as varied as a job recommendation tool using an algorithm based on user’s behavior to an online product support platform for Jobfeed offering virtual tool of the product’s many features. The presentation and judging session took place at the end of the week, by the sea, in the small coastal town of Noordwijk. Each team were given 10 minutes to showcase their innovation and 5 minutes to respond to question from the judges and the audience.
Winner: Match 1-on-1
This year, the “Match one on one” team took home the top prize. With the goal of improving our semantic matching solution, the team developed a prototype able to easily show not only the elements that make a candidate suited for the position, but also the additional qualities the candidate can bring to the job. It gives (agency) recruiters an immediate insight into not only which candidates are fit for the job, but also, more importantly, why.
An overall success
This year again, the innovation week has been a success on many levels. Firstly it sparked the development of amazing products with strong technological and commercial potential. But most importantly it helped cultivate our innovative drive and reinforced even further the Textkernel team spirit.
