Taxonomy Experts at Indeed Discuss How they Built and Managed the Job Searching Database
Indeed, an employment search engine for job listings, faces a unique challenge of building a complete occupational taxonomy that spans multiple countries and languages.
Shannon Hildenbrand, international taxonomy lead, Alice Wallace, taxonomy analyst, and Andrew Childress, taxonomy analyst, offered insights as to how the website orgazines its database during their session, “Classification and Communication: Taxonomy Case Studies at Indeed," at Taxonomy Boot Camp 2018.
Taxonomy Boot Camp 2018 is a part of a unique program of five co-located conferences that includes KMWorld 2018, Enterprise Search & Discovery, Text Analytics Forum ’18, and Office 365 Symposium.
Indeed organizes and classifies job listings and that, Hildenbrand said, can get overwhelming. It’s imperative to firstly prioritize by looking at the biggest issue, scope of the work, and be aware of diminishing returns.
While building a taxonomy database, document everything, Hildenbrand explained. Documentation extends communication and communication for this type of work is key to successful tool building.
Wallace and Andrew introduced Indeed’s latest project initiative, which is a natural language processing tool that was created by cross-cultural and remote collaboration between taxonomists, developers, and the Texas and Tokyo offices.
To begin this project, the teams developed shared language attributes, Wallace said. This defined terminology for internal textual use and don’t be afraid to expand your own vocabulary.
The most important part of the project was explaining or “show and tell,” Childress said. Keeping the feedback loop open and constantly revisiting the status quo can keep a project moving.
It’s important to make the most of in person time when allotted and share clear, consistent communication, according to Childress.
Many presentations have already been made available online at www.taxonomybootcamp.com/2018/Presentations.aspx and others will become available after the presentations are given.
KM World 2019 will be held November 5-7, 2019 at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC, with pre-conference workshops on November 4.