The road to greatness
The idea for Consult Recruitment came to Angela Cameron when she was sitting at her kitchen table with her toddler in 2008. She’s an accountant by qualification and a recruiter by nature. A year into Consult’s journey she convinced Steven Langerak – one of her former colleagues – to take the leap and join her on a new adventure. Since that day at the kitchen table, the company has evolved to 25 employees – most of them consultants.
The firm centres around accounting and financial roles, but also fills leadership, management and legal positions. Angela is ambitious; one of her goals is to grow the company and make it the best firm to work for in New Zealand. She’s shifted the team into one of the nicest offices in town and organised fun outings for the team. But a big part of creating a positive work environment has been giving her staff the best tools, training and support out there. That’s where JobAdder comes in.
The Goldilocks solution
The Consult team first started using JobAdder about four years ago after looking at a number of applicant tracking systems. Some of the options included well-known industry players like Bullhorn and Jobscience, while others were bespoke.
“Some of the solutions in the marketplace were very big systems that had large costs in both set-up and ongoing costs that you couldn’t really justify if you’re a small business, growing from 1 to 2 … to 15 or 20 people.”
Another major factor in the decision-making process was the cost of integration because Angela couldn’t afford a lot of downtime. Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue with JobAdder; her employees were able to hit the ground running.
“JobAdder came out on top in all the key areas, from the cost of integration and setup to training for staff and then functionality and utility. I think the beauty of JobAdder is it runs in an agile, modern software environment that gives you regular updates to features that matter to users. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are, it scales with you and your business which is perfect.”
Angela says an added selling point was JobAdder’s ability to integrate with partners like Gmail, PeopleAdder and HelloSign. Consult is now able to do billings and automatic surveys with a single click. All the complexity that existed before is gone. Angela says as new consultants are hired, they become immediate fans of JobAdder and remark how easy it is to use compared to their old systems.
Promises delivered
A lot of recruitment software companies like to pump their own tires when it comes to what they can deliver. But Angela says JobAdder doesn’t just talk the talk, especially when it comes to support.
“I think the level of help at JobAdder is next-to-none compared to other software or other businesses that I’ve come across. When you launch a ticket and you put a level of urgency on it, if it is super urgent you will be called within a few minutes, if not a few seconds … it’s really world-class.”
The proof is in the numbers. Compared to the previous system, consultants spend 50% less time on processing and screening applications. They also spend about half the amount of time searching for candidates in the database. Angela credits JobAdder’s search function.
Internal communications have also improved. Candidates are now seen by all teams, resulting in one out of every two placements coming from another consultant. Customer service is better too because there’s so much transparency (and a lot less confusion) with the new system.
The result is JobAdder doubling the effectiveness of the agency.
Angela’s technical advisor said if they were to build an ATS, this is exactly what they would create.
“In terms of its functionality, how it works, it’s web-driven, which is fantastic. There’s just nothing like it in the marketplace, so that’s a real key driver.”
The PowerAdder difference
Consult was one of the early adopters of JobAdder’s analytics tool PowerAdder – helping users break down data to reveal insights into their business. The information has helped Angela make decisions by examining hard numbers.
“We really do believe that we try to make all of our decisions based on what’s actually happening, not just the gut feel because recruiters are the worst in the world at just telling you what’s going on out there, the word on the street. But the data could be totally different.”
PowerAdder has also been able to help her spark conversations with clients about inclusivity in the workforce.
“A lot of it is just nuggets you can pull out that you can take to the marketplace. Some of the work that was done around diversity and placements … that was gold for us because it’s a big issue.
“To be able to talk actively in the marketplace, to say we have the diversity data in that we place more females than males into accounting and finance roles. Oh, and by the way, they earn on average the same or more than their male counterparts, and a quarter of our placements are of Asian heritage. It’s really, really powerful information.”
Angela says the reports have also helped her make business decisions to help drive growth goals and make Consult the best agency to work for in New Zealand.
“If you’re serious about improving your business, then you’re going to be serious about the data that relates to your business. If you’re not going to invest in tools like PowerAdder, then you’re not really serious about improving your business,” added Angela.
The flexibility of being mobile has made a difference too, allowing consultants more flexibility when they’re on the go. In the future, Angela will be looking at JobAdder to help create more efficiencies in their processes.
“We love the system, love the people and are just excited about what’s coming out next to help us be great.”