We confirmed the effectiveness of our IT talent recruitment method – 2019 in brief

The future of recruitment? We confirmed the effectiveness of our IT talent acquisition method and started a cooperation with PZU, Nordea, Intel, Samsung, Nokia, and Rockwell Automation. We also attracted new investors and acquired several million zlotys to fuel our further growth. 2019 at ChallengeRocket in brief.

For ChallengeRocket, 2019 was a year of success. We acquired 5.6 million PLN in capital to fuel further growth, participated in the MIT Enterprise Forum CEE acceleration programme, and won several prestigious sector awards. Our client base expanded to include companies from all over the world. How will we remember 2019?

ChallengeRocket is the best alternative to job boards 

Traditional job ads no longer cut it. HR/recruitment departments need to put in a lot of extra work to get the expected number of applications for any given job. This means that the whole process takes longer, while access to the best applicants is limited.

ChallengeRocket is a recruitment platform that allows companies to reach out to candidates who might not be available through traditional sourcing channels. It helps companies recruit engineers, business analysts, data analysts and programmers.

What is #SkillChallenge?

Our sourcing method is based on a formula we have dubbed "Skill Challenges". The theme of each challenge covers the range of knowledge necessary for a given job. Before they are invited to the next recruitment stage, candidates must demonstrate their skills by solving tasks similar to those they would have to face if hired for the position.

Artificial intelligence is then used to analyse their responses, assess their skills, and identify potential shortcomings. This allows the time and cost involved in candidate pre-selection to be significantly reduced.

Companies have been implementing our solution as a new permanent strategy to recruit the best employees and build their talent pool.

Popularizing our #ChallengeAverage philosophy

For the past few months, we have focused on implementing a new functionality based on the "Challenge Average" philosophy. At any time, teams composed of employees from a given department may be asked to take part in a challenge that will test their practical know-how. The average score will then serve as an index of their knowledge.

Only candidates who achieve a score equal to, or higher than, the average score of current staff will be invited to the next recruitment stage. The goal is to identify the very cream of the crop in a given field. The system allows us to reach both active job seekers and so-called passive candidates, who normally do not respond to traditional job ads.

We are glad to see that more and more clients are deciding to implement the system in their organization to constantly raise their staff's knowledge and engagement.

Success in many fields

2019 was a very fruitful year for us. ChallengeRocket was hailed as the best start-up at the Economic Forum in Krynica, and in December, we won the "Startupy w Pałacu_EKSPANSJA" competition, receiving a memorial certificate from the hands of the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. We also took part in the MIT EF CEE acceleration programme organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; during a week-long boot camp in Boston, we had the chance to pitch our solution to an international audience. Our product also travelled to trade shows in San Francisco, Tokyo, Lisbon, Sao Paulo and Dubai, where we won 1st prize at GITEX, the largest technology conference in the Middle East, Africa & South Asia.

Our acceleration at Dubai Future Foundation was an interesting experience, as it allowed us to start a cooperation with the UAE government. Our platform will be used to test programmers within the framework of the One Million Arab Coders project.

Plans for the future

At ChallengeRocket, we are committed to delivering the best value to our clients. We want to know them better, talk more and surprise them with frequent system upgrades and new custom functionalities designed to meet their actual needs. We want our platform to support their short- and long-term recruitment goals and significantly reduce their work time.

The capital we acquired last year will be of great help in our further growth. The EEC Magenta fund supported our start-up with 3.2 million PLN; a further 2.4 million came from the National Centre for Research and Development under the "Fast Track" programme.

Need to start recruitment? Launch ChallengeRocket

This year, we are planning to further consolidate our position on the recruitment market. We will expand our #SkillChallenges offer with tasks for more jobs and continue building the talent community around the platform.

Author: Paweł Kwiatkowski, CEO, Co-Founder

Contact: LinkedIn, pawel@challengerocket.com