Rethinking Recruitment

How can recruitment and matchmaking events organized by City of Espoo help companies and talent relevantly find and connect with each other, despite AI-generated job search materials and AI-assisted recruitment processes are becoming common?

Introduction to the Challenge

Finding the right talent is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in fast-changing industries and international recruitment. At the same time, talented professionals often struggle to communicate what they can actually contribute, while companies struggle to articulate what they really need.

The City of Espoo works with companies and professionals by organizing recruitment and matchmaking events which are organized online and in person, sometimes also in hybrid format. Despite strong event organizing capabilities, challenges remain in facilitating the right kinds of matches between recruiting companies and jobseeking professionals participating in the events. We believe there is an opportunity to rethink how talent, skills, needs and opportunities are identified, described, communicated and matched.

The Challenge

Recruitment and matchmaking events often rely on incomplete information. Companies do not always know how to describe their talent or service needs and they provide this information to the event organizer too late, only just before the event day. Professionals do not always know how to communicate their strengths and potential. Traditional documents such as CVs, applications and on-line profiles may not provide an accurate picture of either side.

At the same time, AI-generated job search materials and AI-assisted recruitment processes are becoming common, creating situations where both sides are increasingly interacting through machine-generated interpretations rather than genuine understanding.

Your challenge is to imagine and prototype new ways to help companies and talent find more relevant, efficient and meaningful connections in recruitment and matchmaking events organized by the City of Espoo. The solution can focus on any stage of the journey before, during or after a matchmaking event or address the entire process, registering to, attending and following-up after an event.

Initial Insights and Analysis on the Challenge

Today's matchmaking and recruitment events face several recurring challenges:

• Companies are often difficult to engage and motivate to participate as they do not identify a public sector organization like the city to be a relevant source for building a pipeline: the city is the public sector employment service provider and companies assume there are no suitable candidates within the city’s pool of jobseeker customers. Also, since the city’s services are free of charge, the quality of the service is questioned.

• Participating companies may struggle to describe their actual talent and service needs clearly and early enough.

• Organisers receive a large number of applications but have limited ability to understand applicants' real capabilities and potential and how their profile matches with companies’ talent needs. This applies especially to skills and competences needed in technology sectors.

• Companies can become overwhelmed by large volumes of largely irrelevant candidate approaches during events.

• Many professionals find it difficult to describe their competencies, transferable skills and value proposition in a way that attracts the attention of recruiters.

• CVs, applications and messages are increasingly generated with AI, while employers are increasingly analysing them with AI, creating a risk that matching decisions are based on synthetic representations rather than genuine capabilities and needs.

• Functionalities of an on-line event platform with matching algorithms are perceived as cumbersome.

• On-line event platform may crash due to people logging in simultaneously at the beginning of an event.

• In the case of recruiting international professionals either from within Finland or from abroad, recruitment introduces additional complexity related to authority compliance, language, culture, relocation and onboarding support.

We are interested in solutions that help create stronger signal and less noise throughout the process of registering and attending an event, ie. help companies and talent focus on the most relevant opportunities and conversations during an event. Solutions should consider how to avoid reinforcing bias or systematically disadvantaging people based on nationality, language, educational background, career path or other characteristics unrelated to the actual opportunity.

Technologies and Support (What We'll Bring)

The City of Espoo will provide:

• Access to subject-matter experts working with companies, talent attraction and international recruitment and event organizing.

• Example scenarios and user journeys based on real matchmaking events.

• Feedback on solution concepts from the perspective of event organisers, companies and talent.

• Guidance on responsible AI, privacy and public-sector considerations where relevant.

Teams are free to use any suitable technologies, methodologies or approaches. Solutions may support matchmaking, communication, discovery and decision-making processes, but automated profiling or automated decision-making about individuals without human involvement should not be a part of the solution.

Teams should use synthetic data. Solutions should minimise personal data processing and demonstrate how privacy would be protected in a real-world deployment in compliance with the EU AI Act.

Mentors and contact persons

Who will be mentoring the challenge from your side?

Mentors: We will have mentors from the City of Espoo’s International Working Life Services team and Business Services team. They will be available on-site and on Discord to coach teams in different aspects of your ideas.

Main contact person for the challenge: Melissa Arni-Hardén, Client relations manager & International Working Life Services team lead, City of Espoo.

The Prize and How to Win it

Prize

The winning team will receive €1500 in cash, second runner up gets €1000 and the third team €500 The winner also gets an exclusive opportunity to present their solution to the City of Espoo’s business development and innovation leaders as well the national network of cities working on talent attraction and retention. (In other words, your idea won’t just win money; it could get real visibility with the people who can help make it happen!)

Runner-up teams will receive Espoo-themed swag bags and will be featured on the city’s communication channels (a nice boost for your project’s visibility and a presentation to the cities of Helsinki and Vantaa).

Judging Criteria

We welcome solutions that improve matching, discovery and communication between companies and talent. Teams should consider privacy, transparency, fairness and inclusion when designing their concepts. Solutions should avoid unnecessary personal data processing and should not rely on automated decision-making about individuals.

Available Open APIs and Public Data Sources

Teams are encouraged to identify and use relevant public data sources, open APIs and AI services that support their approach.

Examples may include:

Job search portals

• Duunitori - Uusi tapa löytää
• The Hub | Find your next exciting startup job
• Open jobs - Work in Finland
• Henkilöasiakkaat - Job Market Finland

Event platform providers

• Connect with more people – Tavata
• Brella | Event platform | Event app | Matchmaking & Networking

Other resources

• European Skills/Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) - Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
• National Forum for Skills Anticipation
• Suomi.fi service PTV Open Api Documentation - PROD
• Business Espoo
• Recruitment assistance | Business Espoo - Helping companies thrive | City of Espoo

Teams are not expected to use any specific technology, dataset or methodology. The focus should remain on solving the underlying problem rather than implementing a predefined technical solution.