Perhaps one of the most underrated recruitment tactics utilized today are case competitions held by colleges and universities. These time-sensitive competitions allow students to participate in developing the best unique solution to a business problem (i.e., the “case”) faced by organizations today. Oftentimes, that solution comes in the form of a new product or service the organization in question can utilize to solve their case. However, the college students that formulate these solutions are rarely—if ever—paid or properly accredited for their work.
One college case competition expert and senior BBA student at the University of Michigan (UM), David Botos, seeks to change that. After competing in several case competitions throughout 2019, Botos sought to find a way to help his fellow upperclassmen students engage in more meaningful ways with (and solve problems for) leading organizations while still enrolled in university. The result is Helix, which Botos founded in February of 2020.
“My vision for Helix is to not only assist leading companies in the world today execute custom recruiting competition for all fields better than they can with competitors we’ve tried firsthand,” Botos says, “but to also increase the accessibility of this recruiting method by passing on the cost benefits of our tech-enable logistics for our network of clients.”
True to his vision, Botos’ creation of Helix presents a unique opportunity for upperclassmen college students as well as hiring managers, recruiters, and other HR professionals: by working with Helix to construct and subsequently conduct case competitions for leading organizations, HR teams will have unique access to the student body at a growing number of universities in the US through a growing team of ambassadors engaged to market their custom case study competitions through Helix’s online platform. In this way, the students competing in—and winning—those competitions are better poised to network with recruiters at some of the world’s leading organizations today, additionally benefitting from unparalleled exposure to recruiters at leading firms and learnings from educational workshops Helix offers.
Likewise, hiring managers and other HR professionals at those organizations are able to receive an unprecedented opportunity to judge each candidate’s aptitude and social fit via presentations and group work recordings.
“Between our team’s founders,” Botos continues, “we have 10 case competitions and 3 hackathon wins informing our business strategy of pursuing improvements to both ends of our two-sided marketplace, leading to the creation of a ten-fold or higher ROI to both audiences: students and organizational recruiters.”
To further streamline this process, Botos has created a hub for each case competition Helix’s student professionals participate in directly on the company’s website, which goes live on August 30th at HelixCases.com. By hosting each case competition in one unified location, confusing email logistics—which often fall upon the mercy of business’s HR teams—are all but erased. Furthermore, Botos and his team personalize each specific case presented to Helix in such a way to investigate unique areas of interest for each of Helix’s clients, meaning that 200-300 hours of top students’ work turns into research and ideation insights that the firm can utilize in other business functions.
“Finally,” Botos adds, “we advertise our competitions, educational workshops, platform-enabled logistics, and unparalleled market research through a network of ambassadors across the US who manage relationships with professional clubs on their campus.” Those ambassadors, as Botos explains, can additionally be engaged to host table events, post flyers, hand out brochures, share social media content, and more for the businesses they assist through Helix’s hosting of its student-led case competitions.
In short, this means that Botos’ offering through Helix poses 3 primary benefits to its corporate organizational partners: recruiting, research/ideation, and organic marketing. When utilized together, all three benefits create a better value proposition for Helix’s corporate partners at a far cheaper price than each would on its own in a more traditional operational manner, or through Helix’s competitors.
As for his goals with Helix, Botos offers one simple word: scalability. One possibility to achieve this, as Botos explains, is through constructing a case-building tool that allows HR firms to construct their own unique case studies. Helix would then leave the judging of the first and second round for each case competition to its client HR teams, effectively allowing Helix to become a marketplace for campus recruiting without the burdensome hassle of orchestrating with campus career development offices.
Botos mentions that, along with these initiatives, he and his team at Helix are also pursuing methods of retaining and updating information regarding their “Helix Alumni”. This way, Helix can be better positioned to serve the headhunting needs of hiring managers and HR recruiters in order to unlock additional opportunities for the upperclassmen college students who participate in Helix’s future case competitions.
