I don’t know if every hackathon will go remote, but this month’s Eightfold hackathon pulled it off awfully well. It was the company’s eighth hackathon, all with a somewhat unusual format.
That’s because they’re not limited to coders. Any employee can participate, creating ideas for new features. Interns are welcome and are active participants. Entrants just have to be interested in using their creativity, thinking differently, breaking up their daily routine, learning, and innovating.
Past winners of Eightfold hackathons developed features that have become well entrenched in the Talent Intelligence Platform, including ideas related to virtual recruiting, analytics, hiring manager reporting, improvements to the Talent Network, bulk resume importing, and more.
The biggest of all was a year ago. When the pandemic hit, the company all but shut down part of its normal operations for several days for a massive, round-the-clock, multi-day hackathon. The end result was a marketplace that uses artificial intelligence to match the capabilities of laid-off employees with companies that are hiring.
Anyhow, more than two dozen ideas were presented at this hackathon, which lasted several days, ending March 1. That night, contestants gave six-minute presentations, with half that time spent on a demo. The criteria for winning included how useful the ideas were, how novel they were, the ability to be transformational, and whether they produce a return on investment.
Some of the most exciting ideas revolved around the Career Hub. Once implemented, the “hacks” will make the Career Hub stickier, and more integrated into the daily lives of employees. Profiles of employees will become even richer.
Winners included “hacks” that enhance Eightfold-powered career sites; integrate apps more smoothly; and improve the popular interview-scheduling feature.
A “most popular hack” (via popular vote measuring how many people “clapped” online for the entry) was given to a hack that improves Eightfold’s messaging abilities.
Other Ideas presented included improvements to Eightfold’s Career Hub integration with learning systems and other software; enhancements to CRM; and diversity analytics.