Case Study: 8 Hires using Shared Services Approach
Overview
Arizona’s largest community college district launched an aggressive strategic initiative to centralize its marketing efforts, moving strategy and decision-making from the separate campuses to the district office. Led by the Strategic Director of Marketing and Operations, the initiative required the district to restructure the marketing departments and hire new managers on eight of the district’s 10 campuses.
The district is one of the nation’s largest community college systems with 10 colleges across the county, serving more than 200,000 students each year.
The Challenge
Using a traditional recruiting model to successfully identify eight managers campus-wide would leave each of the campus’ HR teams faced the daunting task of sourcing, sorting, and vetting hundreds of resumes and applications to pass on to the campus hiring managers, and each campus had at least three decision makers involved in the process. This method could potentially paralyze the teams and hinder the initiative’s progress.
The college district chose a new way to get results – the shared services approach.
The Solution
The district hired Another Source, a results-based recruiting firm serving higher education and business professionals, to build and engage robust candidate pools for the vacancies. Launching a shared services strategy between marketing and human resources, Another Source first identified the district’s story, learning how the hires aligned with the strategic plan of the organization, how they could share that story in the marketplace, and how best to efficiently source for top talent. Then, our team went to work:
- We streamlined the recruiting process and established one point of contact to work with at the district level.
- We used our targeted distribution approach to tap into our professional network of 10,000-plus contacts throughout the West Coast to create referrals and attract the interest of passive seekers.
- From hundreds of applications, we quickly identified and interviewed candidates, creating a highly-qualified “short list” of talent to share with the district’s hiring teams.
- Throughout the process, we held weekly meetings with our point of contact to calibrate and to get feedback.
The Results
Another Source completed eight successful campus searches within just six weeks for a third of the cost of a traditional recruiting model. Here are the results:
- Another Source distributed an authentic and consistent story in the marketplace through 40-plus posting distribution points, representing the district’s commitment to recruiting a diverse workforce.
- Another Source reviewed hundreds of applications of interest and handled all related administrative tasks, which relieved a significant burden for the district’s internal HR teams.
- The district experienced a 2-to-1 hiring ratio from a deep candidate pool of 30 candidate profiles.
The district’s Strategic Director of Marketing and Operations said Another Source was a great choice. “I would 100 percent recommend Another Source, and I enjoyed working with their team,” she said. “Having them go through everything and present us with the summary profile was wonderful. The ease at reviewing a few solid candidates versus 300-plus who didn’t fit the bill was an invaluable time saver.”