The context
Crossbridge is a recruitment and advisory firm for talent. They noticed that people often struggle with fully understanding where their strengths lie and what they look for in a (new) career. Furthermore, employers often find it difficult to find the right people for the right job. We partnered with Crossbridge and academic partner prof. Eva Kyndt in 2017 to define a digitalization trajectory turning their experience, client base, and scientific research into a new product and revenue stream.
The challenge
We needed to define the proper product value propositions. myCareerCompanion wants to be a digital career mentor throughout the entire trajectory from hire to retire for individuals, employers and employees. As you need significant volumes of users to make this model work, we decided to tackle the typical marketplace problem by first defining an outstanding user experience for talents and working our way up to a B2B offering down the line.
The product
myCareerCompanion evolved into a marketplace platform that allows people to assess their skills and interests while also discovering the type of job functions and company cultures they would thrive in. Employers on the other hand are paired with candidates that best fit their company culture and are thus able to more easily recruit the talent they’re truly searching for. The proprietary matching algorithm is a paradigm shift towards a proactive form of recruitment.
Results
50+
Employers
+5000
New users per year
33
Academic institution partnerships
18
Courses to upgrade your skill set
For the past several years we’ve had a strong partnership with Panenco, the kind where it feels like you’re on the same team. Being able to work alongside industry experts, in every domain of product engineering, and being challenged on our (IT-)strategy roadmap with a genuine interest in our business, made it possible to let the myCareerCompanion platform grow from scratch to where it is today.
Sofie Priem
Digital product & innovation manager at MyCareerCompanion
01
We shape
Defining the value offering for talents and companies
We started with a visual conceptualization of the user experience through a clickable prototype. We identified various user personas, allowing us to validate functional decisions from all user angles. Alongside this creative work, we also became part of the academic validation process to ensure that all user tests were carried out with the necessary scientific validation.
We then turned this concept into a product roadmap and architecture with clear delivery milestones and growth objectives.
02
We build
A custom algorithm and platform
We opted for the Google Cloud Platform for both the web application and the data infrastructure with BigQuery. In terms of technologies, we decided on Typescript full stack with Node and React. Specific microservices were abstracted into Google Cloud Functions.
We brought a small but highly effective team of 4 engineers together under the supervision of a product manager, and we made sure to give them all the instruments to be able to ship new features frequently and reliably.
We're keen on delivering quality products that delight users. We implemented Sentry for error and performance monitoring alongside farfetched automated tests that run on each deployment. The technical setup is ready to welcome millions of users in the coming years.
03
We grow
A marketplace model with a clever go-to-market strategy
To make the myCareerCompanion business model work, we need large user volumes so a lot of time and attention was put into the growth tactics to find intrinsic growth triggers. We like to abide by the mantra of 'growing on the shoulders of giants': not merely building the marketing efforts from the ground up, but surfing the waves of larger institutions who will recommend myCareerCompanion to broader audiences. Partnerships were set up with academic institutions, student societies, and corporates who wish to complement their hiring efforts with the power of our platform.
The story of myCareerCompanion is only just getting started. We'll gladly keep shifting gears alongside the Crossbridge team in the coming months and years to make a true difference in the way talent is matched with culture.
Let's build!
Are you looking for an entrepreneurial partner to bring your digital ideas to life?Reach out at hello@panenco.com
