In the growing field of competitive gaming, connecting talented students with potential employers can boost early careers, increase employability and highlight the transferable skills that gaming offers.
National Students Esports (NSE) partnered with Struto to develop a groundbreaking solution that bridges the student/employer gap. Through the creation of two dynamic platforms using HubSpot’s Content Hub and CRM, this partnership has revolutionised how gaming students and employers connect for recruitment purposes.
Background
NSE is the body for university competitive gaming in the UK and operates the British University Esports Championship. NSE Careers Boost is an initiative designed to connect and recruit talented esports students with leading employers.
The program leverages the valuable, transferable skills developed through esports participation, including those in computer science, natural sciences, military, engineering, and data science. By preparing students for their early careers, NSE Careers Boost aims to impact the employability of young gamers.
Challenge
NSE approached Struto with the challenge of providing their extensive student database of gamers an innovative platform designed to connect student candidates with employers for recruitment opportunities.
The solution needed to pull data from Steam, a platform for gamers to share their achievements and stats. NSE wanted to leverage this data on their Careers Boost portal to include stats on the profile page of students, e.g. the number of gaming hours completed, gaming accomplishments, education history and more.
NSE partnered with a company called Flex, a startup that pulls gaming insights to assess and rank job candidates (specifically gamers). Flex analyses video games to assess candidates for jobs in industries such as gaming, education, finance, and healthcare. Using AI and gaming analysis, Flex identifies candidate soft skills and personality traits that traditional resumes often lack.
Another challenge was to capture demographical and social data and anonymise it to comply with restrictions. NSE required a solution that captures and reports on the data without storing it against the gamers' profiles.
Solution
Struto proposed HubSpot Content Hub Enterprise to develop the NSE Careers Boost portals, which is supported by HubSpot's robust CRM.
NSE initially briefed Struto to build two platforms: one for students and one for employers.
Struto created a student platform where gamers can sign up and showcase their education, experience, and gaming stats for potential employers. Struto integrated the student platform with the Flex API to pull gaming data from platforms like Steam, allowing students to highlight unique skills such as analytical abilities and problem-solving.
Struto also developed an employer portal to address both sides of the recruitment process. Employers can sign up to access a niche talent pool, using custom objects and associations on HubSpot to sort, filter, and favourite candidates. This streamlines recruitment and improves employability rates for students.
Hurdles
One of the primary challenges was integrating with Flex, as both companies were developing their solutions concurrently. This led to typical startup integration issues, requiring Struto to rapidly adjust their solution design. Another challenge was ensuring scalability and aligning with a long-term vision, including potential monetisation strategies to attract investors. Although this wasn't part of the initial scope, the Struto team embraced the challenge to help NSE future-proof their vision.
"Contributing to the NSE Careers Boost project has been incredibly rewarding. The Struto team excelled in creating a visually pleasing platform with a robust backend and delightful UX. Seeing the platform increase students' employability and positively impact their futures makes all the effort worthwhile."
Anders Grové - Head of Website Platform Practice
Results
Building NSE Careers Boost on a powerful CMS like HubSpot brings a wealth of benefits. These benefits highlight how HubSpot Content Hub underpins the success and growth potential of the NSE Careers Boost platform, reinforcing its impact on connecting esports students with career opportunities. The results include:
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INTEGRATED DATA MANAGEMENT:
The Struto team deployed a seamless integration with Steam and Flex to HubSpot, enabling automated data pull and presentation of students gaming achievements and skills in a streamlined manner.
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ENHANCED USER EXPERIENCE:
Struto's creative design expertise truly shines in the end product. The team leveraged the design capabilities of HubSpot Content Hub to ensure an intuitive and user-friendly experience, simplifying profile creation, skill showcasing, and candidate search.
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DATA PRIVACY AND COMPLIANCE:
HubSpot Content Hub provides robust data privacy controls, anonymising sensitive information in the CRM to comply with regulations. Struto ensured that only relevant student data is showcased to highlight their skills and talents. The data protection measures implemented by Struto are crucial for securely managing information for students and employers.
Impact & Future Scope
By proactively addressing the challenge of ensuring scalability and aligning with a long-term vision, the Struto team helped NSE develop a robust monetisation model. This strategic approach aims to attract potential investors and creates exciting recruitment opportunities for both students and employers, thereby securing NSE's competitive edge in the gaming education sector.
Struto's consultation and technical expertise have been instrumental in growing NSE Careers Boost's initial idea into a robust platform. The platform not only connects students with employers but also has the potential to evolve into a community, offering discussion groups and further engagement opportunities by bringing these two user groups together.
IMPACT OF THE PROJECT:
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SCALABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY:
Struto were confident in positioning Content Hub as the solution to NSE's challenge due to the robust scalability options the platform offers. The solution future-proofs the portals for growth and adaptation when increased user demands, monetisation requirements and evolving features become likely outcomes as the organisation scales.
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EFFECTIVE RECRUITMENT PROCESS:
Custom objects and advanced search functionalities in HubSpot Content Hub allow employers to efficiently filter and identify top candidates. This improves the overall recruitment process and increases employability rates. Struto has harnessed the power of HubSpot to create a streamlined and efficient experience for both esports students and leading employers to connect and share a seamless and enjoyable recruitment process.
The integration between gaming insights platforms and HubSpot also offers a niche advantage that can be expanded to various digital engagement profiles (including health, fitness, online shopping, etc.).
Explore how Struto can help you develop innovative platforms that connect talent with opportunities. Our mission is to create better platforms for better experiences. Contact us to learn more about our solutions and how we can support your growth.
