West Recruitment is a specialist boutique provider that has successfully assisted candidates and hiring managers across Sydney to navigate the recruitment path for over 15 years.
In 2020, West Recruitment decided to make the switch to JobAdder’s CRM and ATS and the agency has seen huge improvements in the past two years since implementation.
We spoke to Benjamin Boulos, General Manager, and Helen White, Marketing, Communications and L&D Manager to learn more about the switch to JobAdder and the benefits they’ve seen.
Problem
When West Recruitment decided to review their recruitment CRM and ATS, they’d been using their old system for a long time. “We had been using our previous system for a long time, nearly 15 years, and it was certainly time for an upgrade. We knew if we wanted to really progress our market position, we needed a system that could support our growth” states Helen. “It was outdated, clunky and not user friendly which makes it harder for us to retain and attract employees.”
“Given our database was as old as it was, it had become increasingly messy and time-consuming to extract information from. No one was coding anymore, it felt like people had given up on it and it just wasn’t effective from a recruitment perspective for time and accuracy.”
Helen says they wanted a fresh start while retaining their wealth of data. “In order for us to act faster for our candidates and clients, we needed a database that we could maintain with better controls in place moving forward. The integration piece was crucial because we’re looking at literally everything in the way of process automation to provide the absolute best experience for all of our stakeholders – clients, candidates and consultants.”
“We needed a CRM that ticked all those boxes. We were specifically looking for a cloud-based system that allowed for a lot more integrations. Our old system didn’t have any bells and whistles attached to it, and often forced us to operate in other external systems to solve a problem – having a centralised system was critical.”
Solution
When exploring the recruitment software solutions on the market, Ben and Helen concluded that ease of integration, implementation and usability were crucial. “We don’t have an in-house IT team so we were looking for something that we could adopt quickly.”
“We wanted a seamless integration with very limited downtime, we could not be offline for days or weeks on end whilst we migrated. A good support structure, training, ease of use, ability to add multiple integrations and price were all contending factors for us.”
Beyond these factors, Helen agreed there was also a great cultural fit with the JobAdder team. “We felt that the team at JobAdder was speaking our language and that the team and product would align well with our own company values. The interactions with each of the teams at JobAdder from sales to migration to support was first class.”
Aesthetically, we liked the look and feel of JobAdder. We spoke about our challenges with our existing database, and how to migrate the mess or how not to migrate the mess more to the point! The migration team were very confident that they would be able to take across what we needed and leave behind what we didn’t, which was very appealing.”
Once West had decided to invest in JobAdder as their preferred solution, Helen says the implementation process was quick and easy. “We prepared well, the integration itself was smooth and without any unwanted surprises. We had very minimal downtime and any issues we encountered were resolved quickly. Once we wrapped our heads around JobAdder, we started really ramping up the integrations like Burst SMS, Aircall, Referoo, Odro and Sourcr to name a few.”
Ben agrees, “I think the best part of the integration was the training and support. The uptake of JobAdder and the speed at which our consultants embraced the learning curve was amazing. Within days, it was like they were using a system they’d been using for a long time and the old one was long forgotten.”
Regarding the implementation, ‘’not only was the training well developed and executed, but I also think the visual aspect, the overall user experience and understanding the workflows in JobAdder was definitely a contributing factor to the ease of use of the product,” Ben concluded.
Benefit
West Recruitment has undoubtedly seen improvements across its business since implementing JobAdder, though Helen states that sometimes it’s hard to quantify these results. “If you take a holistic view, however, we’ve had the best staff retention and record results over the past two years. There are a number of factors that go into that of course, market conditions, staffing etc. plus coming off the back of the early days of COVID-19 to what it is now, you’re not really comparing apples with apples to answer that. Overall though, I do think the firm response is that we’re doing a lot better with JobAdder than we did with our old system.”
“Without question, everyone in the team enjoys using JobAdder. Recruiters who have used other systems will come in saying, ‘oh good, you use JobAdder. That’s great, JobAdder is a great system.’ We’ve had a couple of recruiters join us who’ve used JobAdder previously, which has also been great because they were able to show us how other agencies had used certain elements of the system and they were very happy to continue using it.”
“Then we have other employees come in who haven’t used JobAdder before. We do a lot of onboarding with them and being able to show them step-by-step how JobAdder works is very easy whereas with our old system, there were a lot more steps and external platforms, so it was far more convoluted.”
Ben also points to the power of the JobAdder database and how they’ve been able to make the most of that centralised hub. “We use the database as our source of truth. I think the accuracy and the ability to search and sift through that data at the pace we can is definitely a contributing factor to help us speed up our process.” Adding to this, Ben also says, “The power of data analytics is a hot topic for us at the moment. So frequently we talk to our clients about data-driven decisions in their companies and the roles they’re recruiting, but we acknowledge the need for our own and JobAdder can provide that, which is a game changer in being able to drive performance and identify areas of weakness.”
Another thing Ben highlights is the mobility that JobAdder provides to West Recruitment’s recruiters. “I think one thing that keeps popping up is the mobility of JobAdder. Obviously, it being cloud-based, but more so having its own applications, such as the iOS and Android apps, and having the ability to recruit on the run, in between meetings, leaving notes via voice, it’s all those little things that make the recruiter’s life a lot easier.” “Recruiters aren’t always meticulous about some of the more administrative parts of their role, so having a system that allows for ease of capturing data is a breath of fresh air,” Helen says.
Ben also stresses that the integration partners they’ve added to their JobAdder account have transformed how they work. “JobAdder’s abundance of integration partners was probably one of the biggest differentiators for us. Ensuring that we are working inside the platform is saving us so much time. The partners we have like Odro, Aircall, Burst SMS, Referoo, Secured Signing, plus all the integrations with Microsoft 365, I could go on and on here. That’s a real differentiator for us and it’s going to make us very loyal to JobAdder. We’re always excited by any new integration partner to see if it will add value to us and if so, we can add them with speed and ease.”
Here at JobAdder, our core objective is to add joy to the job of recruitment, so that recruiters can spend more time on the things they love about their job. Ben says that their recruiters see this day to day. “We get to trial all the integration partners and make a judgement around benefit versus cost. Everything we have integrated so far has been fantastic because we’re making our recruiters’ lives a lot easier, allowing them to spend a lot more time on what their core function is rather than all the admin.”
“JobAdder is at the forefront of ensuring that all the technical tools we need are available to us. Whenever we think of an idea or an improvement, for the most part, JobAdder has been able to implement a custom field – it’s not a straight-up, off-the-shelf product. Custom fields are not something that every software provider can deliver on, so I think that’s quite unique. The support we’ve received has been fantastic and something that we certainly value. It feels like JobAdder is a partner or an extension of our business.”
Helen concludes that their JobAdder journey over the past two years has exceeded expectations. “This journey of process improvement for us, starting with a new core system, has been an extremely good experience. We look forward to seeing all the new developments on the JobAdder roadmap and how we can implement these to enhance our customer experience at every touch point.”
