In 71 working days, we hired 23 people. That’s ~1 hire every 3 days.
It was a successful partnership based on communication, clarity and a laser-like focus on high-quality activity.
🎉
23 Hires in 3 months
⏳
23 Days Avg Time to Fill
💰
$450k in Savings
The Results
- 23 hires in 71 working days (3-month project).
- Ave time to fill of 23 days against a target of 30 days.
- ~$450k saving in agency fees.
- 70%/30% split Male/Female hires.
- Hiring managers felt supported & confident in TA.
- Our main stakeholder got time back to focus on other priorities, confident that hiring was in safe hands.
The Client
Our client is an iconic Australian brand and a customer loyalty program equally owned through a joint venture.
Members accrue points by shopping at Coles Group brands, certain Wesfarmers brands and third-party partners. Points can be redeemed against purchases in stores as well as holidays and household goods.
They have experienced substantial growth, from 75 to 320+ employees in the last 3 years.
The Challenge
With a focus on continued growth, they had 40 technical roles to hire but they had insufficient internal Talent Acquisition capacity to manage the sheer volume of work required to successfully fill these roles in a highly demanding market. Crew came on board to provide that extra capacity needed and to maintain the candidate experience that they are known for.
The roles we recruited included web developers, mobile developers, full-stack developers, product managers, security engineers, and platform engineers.
Some niche roles had been open for over 6 months and it was a high priority to support these hiring managers and close these positions as soon as possible.
Our overall goal from the client was to close all roles in an average of 30 days or less.
The Solution
This type of challenge is exactly what Crew is designed for and sits right in our wheelhouse of capability.
We used our Micro RPO solution – which meant we deployed 2 of our full-cycle recruiters and a sourcing specialist within the client team to hire these roles as efficiently and smoothly as possible.
Our team worked directly with hiring managers, the people team and of course our brilliant candidates.
This is a breakdown of how we did it.
The Project Plan
We like to be organised, we love clarity and we double love teamwork.
Our projects generally follow the same proven format.
- Pre-launch 🙌🏻
- Launch Week 🚀
- Project Delivery 👍🏻
- Wrap-Up & Handover 🥳
- Crew & Client Retro 👏🏻
Pre-launch 🙌🏻
Our pre-launch meetings with our main stakeholders are designed to set the scene, align expectations and plan our launch week.
Did we mention that we’re big fans of being well-organised? We created an Asana project and started populating that with all the required activities and then we assigned tasks such as;
- Confirming system set-up requirements and what information we needed from the client.
- Confirming action plan, goals and high-priority meetings for the first week.
- Booking internal meetings with our sourcing team to align our knowledge of the client’s business and the current open positions via Linkedin and their careers page.
- Built and documented our inbound and outbound sourcing plan and communications templates ready for the start date of our project.
Our stakeholders are invited to the project also. This provides maximum clarity and opportunities for efficiency through collaboration.
Launch Week 🚀
In the first week, we get to know each other and ensure that we’re aligned on what needs to get done first.
- Expectations around hiring targets are reconfirmed.
- Priority roles are clarified.
- Agreed on how to best provide weekly reporting.
- Clarified the hiring processes for the roles.
- Agreed on our initial communication cadence.
- Met our hiring managers and other stakeholders.
- Confirmed that internal system access such as ATS and email was up and running.
We also accessed all the required candidate content such as:
- Perks & benefits details
- Interactive PDs and existing Job Ads
It was important that we got up to speed as quickly as possible on how to sell the individual opportunities as well as the benefits and what the day-to-day working life is like there.
We also went through some quick-fire training on Livehire, the client’s ATS of choice.
Hiring Manager Engagement
We know that for hiring managers, this can be a time that’s exciting but can also bring uncertainty. So starting to build relationships, communicating the project plans, and understanding their concerns and challenges was of the utmost importance.
We had initial job brief meetings with our hiring managers which included:
- Designation and role budgets.
- Reporting manager and team hierarchy.
- Tech stack – Good to have vs. must-have skills.
- Key areas of accountability in the role.
- Set expectations: As we had a target of closing each position in 30 days, we shared our 4 week plan of action and explained how we would provide weekly recaps on our activity and progress.
- Hiring process – number of steps, technical tests, etc.
- Discussing what’s worked well for them in the past.
- What other support do they need from us?
- Are they confident interviewers?
- How can we best support them individually?
We worked with each Hiring Manager to confirm their preferred way to communicate and how often. For example, this could differ by their preferred internal communication channel (Slack, Teams, email) and if they preferred weekly update calls 1on1 or detailed email updates.
Project Delivery 👍🏻
Once we were confident that we had systems set up, and access to all the candidate content we needed, hiring managers on board and our overall plan defined, we were ready to get moving with the day-to-day hiring activity.
- Prioritised roles & divided tasks.
- Finalised planning and activated sourcing and screening for roles.
- Booked weekly WIP calls and agreed on the most effective way to keep hiring managers updated.
- Managed all requisitions from opening through to sourcing, screening, interviewing, offering, reference checking and closing.
Sourcing & Recruitment Process
We planned and documented our inbound and outbound sourcing strategies for each role.
- Inbound included advertising the roles on the company website, relevant job boards, Slack channels, Meetup groups, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and relevant community noticeboards.
- Outbound involved highly personalised & targeted direct messaging to relevant candidate profiles. Candidate lists were built from Google X-Ray searches and in LinkedIn projects.
- We then set weekly internal meetings with our sourcing team for all niche and high-priority roles to analyse and adjust sourcing plans as we progressed through roles.
Once we engaged with potential candidates, we managed the entire process:
- Ran detailed screening calls with applicants prior to sharing them with hiring managers.
- Coordinated all interviews, technical tests and debriefs.
- Worked with the hiring team to block out interview times and gather feedback quickly to shorten the time between steps.
- Conducted reference checks for the offered candidates.
Communication Cadence
We know from experience that when we proactively manage the schedule of communication we can bring clarity to all stakeholders. Clarity is kindness.
Internally at Crew – Weekly internal meetings with our Crew team and brainstorming on sourcing strategies.
With our hiring managers – Frequent conversations about candidates and the market, with weekly written recaps on progress.
With the clients’ People team – Weekly meetings and shared all of our wins/challenges/updates across all the roles. We also maintained a consolidated Google Sheets tracker with the status of all the roles in one place. We brought the data around outbound approaches for the week, application numbers, screening calls, interviews and offers. We also showed days open and time to fill, for each role.
Yup, we brought the numbers.
We were embedded in the client’s infrastructure such as Teams chats and Slack channels which made this all a lot more efficient and natural for everyone.
Niche Roles
Some of our roles were a little less run-of-the-mill and required some extra brainpower.
- Our team ran internal brainstorming sessions every week to ensure that we were thinking of creative ways to tackle these more challenging roles.
- A sourcing strategy was put in place along with a plan of action for everyone on the team.
Details on sourcing strategies included:
- Inbound and outbound comms
- Diversity led strategies
- Use of non-traditional channels (such as Discord, Reddit etc)
Importance of feedback and data on our activity and the market:
- The data we gathered on the activity for these niche roles enabled the People team to get approval from the leadership team to launch a 10K referral bonus for Mobile Developers.
- Our insights also helped the leadership team to understand the reasons why some of the priority roles were traditionally taking longer to fill.
Wrap Up and Handover 🥳
As we drew closer to our contract end date we reconfirmed the status of delivery and provided an estimate on the total number of closed requisitions by that date.
- At this stage, we clarify whether a client needs to extend or if we’re on target to close down on the due date.
- We agree on the best communication approach with hiring managers about when we will finish and then agree on our hiring targets for the remaining time together.
- Sometimes hiring priorities change, and sometimes new req’s have been released, so agreeing on what we want to achieve for the remainder of the project is key.
- Our handover comprises of details such as:
- Confirming that all hired candidates’ details are where they should be (ARS/HRIS etc)
- That candidates in a live hiring process have been communicated with and they have been introduced to whoever is taking over that requisition
- Ensuring that all closed reqs have been properly administered (all candidates rejected, moved to communities etc)
- Any and all documentation has been handed over
- Candidate lists that we’ve generated have been handed over
Crew & Client Retro 👏🏻
We’re always mindful of the individual nuance of each client’s engagement and learning from each client we work with. We often find that there is learning for clients as well. Quite often they discover things about their own hiring process or people that they didn’t know before.
We follow a simple format of documenting then discussing.
- What went well?
- What do we think could be improved?
- Sharing overall candidate perspectives we’ve gathered (Are candidates aware of the business, what feedback did we get from them, and how did they compare our client to other employers they were talking to etc?)
- Inbound and outbound sourcing observations – what challenges we faced when trying to engage with candidates
- Process improvement suggestions
- Opportunities for innovation
This is also a chance for clients to make suggestions from their perspective about how and what we could improve or change.
Ingredients for success
Clear plans
We ensured we were focusing on the high-priority requirements by regularly planning for the week ahead.
Engaged hiring managers
We informed the hiring managers about our plan of action and this helped them to plan their availability for the interviews and were flexible.
Consistent communication
We ran regular meetings with the hiring managers and provided weekly updates in writing and in person.
Focus on candidate experience and content
Ensured that our content distribution was targeted and focused on providing timely, context-led feedback at all stages to candidates.
Focus on activity and speed
Our weekly activity was intentionally focused on ensuring that there was clear progress on individual requisitions.
Epic partnership with an epic result!
Hiring is always a team effort. So at Crew, we can become part of your crew.
YOU MAY BE WONDERING WHY WE HAVEN’T NAMED THE CLIENT IN THIS PROPOSAL. CALL IT AN “INTERNAL POLICY” FROM THEIR LEGAL TEAM, WE CAN TALK ABOUT THEM OPENLY ON A CALL THOUGH AND THEY’LL PROVIDE A VERBAL REFERRAL.
