How to Implement Your First Applicant Tracking System

JOSH TOLAN: Alright. Well, Melody, thanks so much for joining me. Why don’t we get started by just hearing a little bit more about yourself and your background?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. For sure. So currently, I work as the Director of People Ops at Accelerated Digital Media, which is a performance marketing agency based and founded in Chicago, but we are a fully remote team. Prior to that, for about twelve years, I’ve worked in recruiting. 

So I worked for two pretty sizable recruiting firms. And most recently, before joining ADM, I was, with Aquent, which is, very focused on creative and marketing, which is really what drew me to the opportunity with ADM. And so at, Vitamin C Aquent, they rebranded themselves after I left.

I supported recruiting for primarily Chicago-based companies and then led a team of three recruiters within the Chicago organization.

So that’s a little bit about my background.

JOSH TOLAN: Awesome. Yeah. I’m curious about what was the transition like from agency to, you know, doing internal recruiting.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. You know, it was a bit of a bigger jump than I expected. I think the first couple of candidates I interviewed that were not the right fit. I was like, wait.

I have to find them something Because that was just what my thought process was when I used to interview people was to be like, okay. They’re not a good fit for this, but, hey. I bet they’d be a good fit for this company. So that was a little bit of a struggle for probably, you know, three weeks until I was like, I I can’t I can’t manage these people’s recruiting backgrounds very much.

So that was probably the biggest challenge. Also, with working at a recruiting agency, you’re working on freelance, you’re working on contract hire, you’re working on direct hire, and, obviously, at ADM, it was all direct hire. So the candidate timeline was a lot longer.

So there were, you know, opportunities at Aquent where I could fill a role in three hours. Obviously, that’s not the case when it’s direct hire when you’ve got a lot of hiring team members to to go through. So but, really, the idea of working at an agency coming from a staffing agency was the smoothest transition for me because I really enjoyed that fast-paced environment. So I’m just seeing it now from a different a different side of things.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And I imagine it’s pretty cool too because in your role as, you know, the head of people, you also have a big impact on what happens after they get hired and the entire employee experience and employee life cycle. So I imagine that was a draw for you as well.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. Absolutely. Like, I think one of the a lot of times, candidates ask me, like, what’s your favorite part of the job? And I always talk about the team and the people and the opportunity since I’ve been with the company for almost three years.

I’ve hired a huge chunk of our existing team. And so to be able to see their careers flourish, grow, get promoted, bring ideas to ADM, really adjust the way that we do things is certainly the highlight. So a little bit different than placing somebody and then they go off and and do great things at their company, and you don’t really get that day-in, day-out understanding when they’re working with you directly. And being able to see their career flare is certainly way more rewarding.

JOSH TOLAN: Got it. Very cool. And so tell me a little bit about ADM just to set the stage for everybody that’s listening. How many employees? What’s the company like?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. For sure. So we are a performance marketing agency. We’ve been around about seven and a half years.

Our team size is just around thirty. When I joined three years ago, we had fifteen people. And to highlight at the start of COVID, they had four. So, definitely, we’ve seen a ton of growth within the last several years.

We do paid marketing, paid media for search, which is Google and Microsoft, Bing, social, so Meta, and all of the other different social channels, and programmatic, which is a lot of streaming audio and connected TV. And we work with direct to consumer e-commerce and digital health clients to help support their paid media program. And so the majority of our team is executing within those clients. So they’re very client-facing and do the work for the clients. And then we’ve got just a handful of team members that are more internal. 

So myself, obviously, we’ve got a marketing manager that handles everything for our website and and blog posts and things of that nature, and then our associate director of business operations that does a ton on the sales front.

JOSH TOLAN: Very cool. And I know we talked a little bit about the catalyst and what excited you about joining ADM, but what was the catalyst for them to go out and find somebody to be ahead of ahead of people at the company?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. That’s a great question.

Something I think is really interesting is most agencies of our size at the time certainly do not. They don’t go in and bring on a head of people. They don’t look to even have an internal recruiter. So prior to me joining, they worked with a ton of different staffing agencies because they were doing a lot of hiring. 

But the reality is they didn’t have somebody who understood the hiring timeline, the hiring process, what it looks like from the point you meet them to the point that they start.

And so through consult our CEO consulted with some, people that were in the space that have a little bit more experience, and they recommended bringing on somebody to lead this team. So very much when I started, it was all about recruiting. They had about six or seven openings when I first started, and that was the focus. And once we got those filled, then it was really looking to how to build the infrastructure of people operations.

It’s really HR, but we’ve branded it because it’s a little bit beyond just traditional HR. But how do we develop our team? It’s focused on employee engagement. It’s focused on managing their payroll and benefits to a degree, managing IT, making sure they have the equipment that makes sense, getting them what they need, and then helping from a performance management standpoint, too. So we put together thirty, sixty, and ninety-day plans.

We put together PIP templates for those circumstances where we do have to manage performance and really facilitated our performance review plan overarchingly. So it is beyond just recruiting, but at the end of the day, recruiting is my bread and butter. That is the most important thing to continue to bring on new talent to join our team.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And I think, you know, what really stands out to me is, like, at the end of the day, you guys are a people power business. Like, you’re an agency. Your services are driven by the people that are executing for your clients. And so it makes a lot of sense that even at, let’s say, fifteen employees, that you would start to invest in those people programs both on the recruiting side to make sure that you’re getting the best talent, but then also on just the broader employee life cycle side to make sure that you’re retaining and you’re developing that talent. 

And, ultimately, I imagine you can actually start to tie that to some business outcomes for the agency because it’s so people dependent.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. I agree. I think that it’s really it’s great for the team to have somebody who’s not in their day in day out workflow. Right?

So Yeah. In most cases, you know, you’re gonna, of course, go to your manager when you have questions, and you’re gonna talk through that. But sometimes you need another person who has a different perspective, and I think that’s what I bring to the table a lot of times. Like, I enjoy I, am part of all of the executive conversations, and I just see it from a different perspective than the client facing team.

And I think that really does help to give us a well rounded view. Our CEO definitely always asks for my opinion, which honestly is really refreshing. I’ve worked for much larger organizations in the past, and that isn’t something that you see on a regular basis. And it’s great for me to be able to see it from a different perspective when I’m thinking about our people, when I’m thinking about me as a potential customer, when I when they’re looking at client-related things.

So, I think it’s certainly helpful to give them a well-rounded understanding outside of, again, just the day-in and day-out with clients.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. And I think also the benefit of you joining early when the team is still of the size it is allows you to really embed yourself within the business and learn both the people and what they do on a day to basis, day to day basis and their roles so much more, which then will help you significantly as you guys continue to grow because you’re just, you know, so in tune with everything that’s going on within the business where if you were to join a much bigger company, it’s like, okay. 

There’s too many people to really dive into, like, what everybody does around here, to really, really, you know, intimately understand their different roles and responsibilities.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. I will say one thing I love, is when I’m interviewing candidates and then they, like, stop, and they’re like, wait. Aren’t you a recruiter? Because I do know what they’re doing.

Because, you know, a lot of and that’s, like, the that’s what people think. Like, oh, recruiters, you’re just, like, filling a job description, which, yes, but I know what they they do. I’m part of those conversations. So while I can’t jump into Google and build out an ad for them, I do understand it because I’m listening to it and I’m talking to it all the time.

And then on the same token, one highlight is, you know, I know my team’s kids’ names. You know, I because of our size, I really do have a vested interest in the team and their success.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. Makes a lot of sense. So, you know, speaking of getting to know the team and learning about the business, when you just got started, you mentioned that, you know, the number one priority was like, okay. We have a bunch of roles to fill. But if you think back to, like, strategically, you know, what did you need to do on the recruiting side? When you came in, what were your priorities? What did you see, and how did you go about tackling those?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So the first thing was, you know, again, coming from an agency, I I know what that looks like on the other end. And so they pretty much took every single agency call. Any agency that saw job description reached out and they’re like, yeah.

Sure. Send us candidates. And so that was definitely the first thing was kind of muddling through all of those different options that they had and determining what made sense for us to move forward and then really putting together processes. So at the time and still to this day, the team uses Monday.com as our project management tool, which huge fan of, but that was our ATS.

So we were literally manually inputting all of the data. And by we, I mean me. So I was manually putting in the team members the candidate’s names. I was putting in their resume, putting in all of the documentation, and then building up the process of a flow.

So, really, who needs to meet somebody so that every single candidate was getting a very similar process. So I would met them, then they who are they gonna meet, then who are they gonna meet, and what do we need to do? So it was a ton of really building a process of how do we get from applicant to hire and, obviously, I think it took about three months for us to make our first actual hire because just learning the processes and who do they need to meet, and we’ve obviously been able to shrink that, time to hire down a little bit since then.

JOSH TOLAN: Nice. So it sounds like it was all about, like, starting with the DIY hiring process, you know, using the tools and solutions that you already had available to you to help with the workflow of that process?

And then was there a moment in time or, like, a specific size you got or capacity where you started to realize, okay. Like, this is a good foundation, but now we need to think about, you know, an ATS or other types of solutions that could fit into the hiring process and make you guys more efficient?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So I think towards the end of last year, so 2023, we started to resource plan for 2024. And based on the existing business that we were invested in as well as what we were expecting from, you know, pitches and new business, and, in 2023, every single month, we brought on a new account. So we were constantly in in that growth mode.

And so as we were entering into planning for 2024, there is gonna be a lot more growth with that, and that really is what streamlined. We need a better process. We need to make it much more digestible for me, taking a little bit of the efficiency, and so it wasn’t as manual, by doing everything within Monday. And so that’s really what the catalyst was.

Again, from my work history prior to ADM, I knew a ton of different ATXs because a lot of the comp clients we were working with had an ATS, and so I had to manage what that looks like.

And, honestly, some were great, and some were really labor intensive, very difficult to manage. So I had an idea of what worked and what was going to work for, a a company our size.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. That makes a lot of sense. And, like, I know you mentioned that, obviously, a big pain point for you is all the manual work involved in adding candidates to the project management system and tracking everything through. But what were some of the other challenges that you found yourself running into? And then, like, how did you relate that to how it would essentially have an adverse impact on the hiring process? Like, maybe because of this manual work, you know, we were not hiring as fast as we need to or whatever it may be.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So two things that I would highlight is, the hiring team was great. They were going to the interviews, but then they weren’t doing anything with that information. So they weren’t providing me any sort of immediate feedback, and so it was a little bit of a chase.

And so, obviously, that wasn’t always their priority. They needed to flip and get back to work. So I understood that. But so didn’t always have a good consistent experience for each candidate because of that.

And then the second thing was is we’re a data-driven organization, and there really wasn’t a ton of automated data that I was able to capture. As wonderful as LinkedIn is, it’s not very pure data. And then everything I was putting into Monday, again, from a reporting perspective, was manual. I had to look at how many people came in through LinkedIn, how many people came in through our website, how many people were submitted if we were using an outside resource, things of that nature.

And that data, while manual, was also not pure. It was definitely a lot of human error because I was taking the data, like, when did the person apply, doing so much of the manual. And that was really important from an efficiency standpoint to have an analytic proponent of it. And that probably was what captured our CEO’s attention on finally moving to an ATS is the opportunity that I was gonna be able to have reporting and be able to share very detailed responses of this is when the role opened, this is when the person started.

And that’s, you know, certainly really important. And, also, how much time our hiring team is spending in interviews, making sure that they’re not interviewing a hundred people for one role and really that efficiency and effectiveness.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And those are commonly, you know, probably two of the most common problems that we hear when organizations are starting to get into the market and look for an applicant tracking system. If we back up to the hiring team feedback, how does that problem play out, though, in the hiring process? Like, I know that one of the biggest challenges for talent acquisition teams is, you know, they’re always complaining about chasing hiring managers down to get their interview feedback, to get their notes, and to get them to do it in a timely manner.

How did that challenge like, how is that playing out for you guys on the hiring process?

MELANIE SCHEER: It was it was a lot of chasing. Right? So it’s sending a Slack message or following up with, you know, the interviewer’s boss to be able to say, hey. Did you get the feedback from so and so?

Could you get that for me? Could you put it into Monday so that we have it? And that what that would slow it down. You know, it could be that there were some interviews on a Friday.

Right? And then on Monday, we were, you know, full steam ahead looking at other things. And so that candidate experience also wasn’t great because they weren’t getting follow-up because I didn’t know how the interview process you know, how it went or what they thought or or why they thought what they did.

And, also, they weren’t necessarily as organized because it wasn’t very solidified. Like, could you rank them from, you know, this topic to this topic to this topic? It was honestly a lot of personal opinion. Right? Like, they were good, but they didn’t do this or they didn’t do this. And so that was a way for that we needed to streamline so that every candidate was getting the same process, which is part of the reason, just to back up for a second, before we went to the ATS that when we brought on the Spark Hire video interview as the first interview, that helped to streamline because the hiring managers got to see those videos and every single candidate was answering the exact same questions. So that was kind of the catalyst of getting the organization down so that it was seamless.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. So it was obviously about, you know, empowering them to easily provide their feedback and do it in a timely manner, but also giving them some structure to do that so that you’re you’re evaluating candidates fairly. And, ultimately, you’re ending up with the best person for the role.

And it sounds like too just the act of you having to go and chase hiring managers down for their feedback, that’s not the best investment of your time either. Right? Like, you could be spending it in other areas and a lot more value. But to keep the hiring process moving along, this is where a lot of folks in talent acquisition find themselves in this position.

It’s like, I have to be the shepherd of the hiring process, and Yeah.

And really nudge people and make sure that I’m, you know, collecting everything. But, ultimately, like, if you can, you know, with tools and with process, if you can, you know, empower hiring managers to do it, and for those tools and processes to hold them accountable, it frees you up, to do a lot of other things. So, cool. That’s really good feedback.

It’s interesting. And then on a data-driven side, you know, it sounds like your CEO, you know, data I mean, obviously, as a performance marketing agency, data’s probably everything for you guys. It’s the language you speak all day long with your clients. So it’s only natural that is now something internally that was really important when you wanted to measure the efficacy of your recruiting efforts.

And so sounded like that was a really good thing to get that in front of him. And then also for you guys, I imagine, you know, without the data or without it being clean data or structured data, it was really hard to know what’s working or what’s not working. Like, everything from the channels, like, when we post an ad on LinkedIn, like, are we getting enough quality candidates? Are we getting quality candidates?

Are we getting quality candidates at all? Or if we post over here, like, figuring out where to spend just as you would with, you know, advertising budget with your clients.

And then also, like you mentioned, like, determining within the hiring process, are there stages where people are getting stuck? How long is this taking? Where are bottlenecks? And without that data and without that reporting, there’s really no way that you can go you know, you don’t know where to start to go about fixing it.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. Absolutely. And the other thing to go back to the feedback part for a sec, the team members like, I put in the feedback immediately after I meet somebody because I meet a lot of people. Right?

So if I interviewed you and then went into another interview five minutes later, my brain is gonna be like, did Josh say that or did Adam say that? And so that’s really important that they are giving, like, feedback on the spot versus, hey. You interviewed Josh a week and a half ago, and I never heard back. What were your thoughts?

Yeah. I didn’t like him. Well, I need more data to understand what did you not like about him and things of that nature. So definitely, you know, that speed of the process was really important, and that would also help with the analytics because the slower the quicker you can make the process, the more pure the information will be.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And that’s a really good point about the timeliness of feedback as well is when it’s timely, you’re gonna get more depth and context in that feedback versus, like, it’s a no go.

Which

MELANIE SCHEER: Exactly.

JOSH TOLAN: That’s fine to get that answer to help make a decision, but it’s not gonna help you, a, give that candidate feedback and, b, calibrate on, okay, why were they a no go? How do we make sure that, like, you know, a candidate with that no go profile doesn’t get to that stage again. Right?

MELANIE SCHEER: Exactly.

Yeah. The feedback is really very much two-sided. Like, I now know when my VP of client growth I’m like, he’s gonna love this person. I know I know enough of what that is because of the amount of feedback I’ve gathered versus, you know, if you just say no, why?

So, a, I wanna be able to provide constructive feedback to the candidate if they if they ask. Some really want it. Some have no interest in hearing constructive feedback, but also me. So I like this person.

I think they’re a good fit. What did you what was missing? And that really helps them the next time I’m meeting somebody. Okay.

So they were missing this really important skill set. I need to make sure that I asked about it in the next interview to make sure that we are getting much more qualified candidates in front of the hiring team.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. That makes a lot of sense. So you identify the need for an ATS based on the problems that you’re facing.

Where do you start? Right? The market is vast. There’s so many providers out there. How do you start that search process?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So, again, kind of knowing which ones I had no interest in from my previous work experience, and then really what makes the most sense for what we need. So, again, I needed to make sure that, a, I loved it because I’m gonna be in it all day long, but also that the hiring team isn’t going to find it to be an inconvenience to have to go to another page to do something. And so I needed it to be something that all they have to do is go to one website.

All they do, they see everything. And so that was really important as we are identifying ATSs. Is it going to be all they have to do is click on the the link in their calendar invite so that they don’t have to do any heavy lifting and they automatically get everything that they need. That was key.

Is it gonna be super easy for them to navigate? Is it gonna be very highly automated so that they’re able to know exactly what they need to ask? So even if they walked in with zero preparation, they have everything they need. They have the resume.

They have information about the candidate. They have notes from me or other hiring team members that have interviewed them, and they have the specific questions that they’re gonna ask and nice little boxes that they can fill out. So, really, that they should be able to provide immediate feedback as soon as they can. So those were the things that were the most important to me.

And then, of course, financial. So we didn’t build an ATS into our budget as we were planning, And so that was something that was really important was that is it going to be a financially smart decision?

I’ve dealt with a lot of different vendors across a lot of different categories before, and there really could be such a wide range of what their costs are. And that was something that if we’re investing in this, I need to know that it’s gonna be cost-effective, and we’re going to be able to– it’ll make a difference, and the hiring team is gonna be bought into it. Because the absolute worst thing is if I invest in it, I love it, and the hiring team still doesn’t use it. So that was the thing that was the most important was that ease of use without breaking our bank.

JOSH TOLAN: Interesting. It’s really interesting to me how, you know, much you’re taking into account the hiring manager experience when thinking about systems. What is the balance there? Right? Like, as you’re evaluating an ATS, what’s the balance of making sure the ATS is a good fit for you versus making sure that it’s going to be a good fit for all the hiring managers that are gonna need to work into it?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. Because I’m a one man band on the recruiting end, it probably is more important that they are able to use it. So, really, like, knowing how they use Monday.com as our project management tool for their own daily deliverables, I wanted it to be as seamless to that as it could be. So, truthfully, for me, it was more important that it works well for them.

Because if it works well for them, then I’m getting the data, and thus, it’s gonna be more efficient for me. So it was definitely not a selfish decision. It was more it well, I guess it could be considered a selfish decision because at the end of the day, it benefits me more, but it really was, like, getting the how easy is this gonna be for them versus, hey. 

You have to learn this whole new system, and you need, you know, an authorization code to log in. And, of course, it’s five seconds before an interview. Like, all of those things that I know exist in other ATSs, I didn’t want them to have to do. So, definitely, for me personally, it was more important that the team had an easy, system.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. No. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, look, at the end of the day, especially on any lean talent acquisition team. Hiring manager experience and candidate experience are ultimately what’s going to drive results for the talent acquisition team.

Right? If you’re delivering a really seamless hiring manager experience where it’s easy for them to make decisions, easy for them to provide structured feedback, ultimately, it’s going to help them get a hire faster, and it’s gonna give you the feedback that you need to continuously produce better hires in the future for those similar roles. 

And then on the candidate experience side, it’s a very similar thing. Like, if you’re not saying your candidate’s up for success, you don’t have the necessary touch points in place, you’re not gonna get the results that you need as a talent acquisition professional.

So if you can really empower candidates and hiring managers to have a really solid experience, And I feel like that’s ultimately gotta be the priority for a talent acquisition team because, you know, you’ve got the chops to kinda pick up all the other pieces, you know, in between. But, you know, naturally, that’s, like, I would say one of the biggest challenges in the role is you have to navigate the hiring manager and candidate experience.

MELANIE SCHEER: To your point, it – sorry.

I didn’t mean to cut you off. But to your point about the candidate experience, there are several other APSs out there that candidates hate. Right? So you see it on LinkedIn.

They post about it. Every time they log in, they need to create a whole new profile. I remember years ago, my husband was working with a recruiter, and they submitted him to a job, and they created an email for him. Like, it was such a I was like, what are you talking about?

They created an email for like, a random email. And so there is that, like, such a high list that, like, if somebody sees that specific ATS as a candidate, they’re like, I don’t even wanna bother. Like, it’s gonna be such a pain. The other thing I hear a ton is they upload their resume, and then they have to answer every single question related to what’s on their resume.

And so that from a candidate perspective, what we ended up choosing was Israel has a great candidate, experience because they upload their resume. They answer a couple of questions that are a little bit deeper than their resume, and all of a sudden they’re in front of us. So that is one one huge call out that the client candidate experience does have to be considered when building, an ATS.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. And if we back up a little bit and think about internally, you know, I know you, we talk about the importance of data to the CEO, the importance of the experience of gathering feedback from hiring managers, making sure it’s easy for them to use, and making sure that it’s not a burden from the other systems and tools they’re using on a day-to-day basis.

How do you incorporate all of those different stakeholders into the process of selecting an ATS, and were they involved in that process?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yes. Great question. So, truthfully, it was more my choice with the and kind of bouncing it off of the CEO and then pulling in our VP just to get his buy-in as well. Honestly, the hiring managers didn’t have a say. I wasn’t going to I I don’t wanna say waste their time, but even if I did have three ATSs that I wanted to work through and, like, present that to them until they were physically in it, it didn’t make sense. 

So I think going back to our earlier conversation of how I know our team and how I know how our team operates, I was able to use my knowledge of how it would work within the decision making process. But at the end of the day, yes, I made the final decision, got approval from my CEO and the VP.

JOSH TOLAN: Got it. And what was that approval process like? I know you mentioned and this happens to a lot of companies, especially that size.

Go to the year, it’s not a budget. It’s not a line item in the budget. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, there’s a need. How do you get that approval?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So, honestly, usually, my studio is awesome because he will poke holes in everything that I bring in, and I mean that in, like, the nicest way possible. He sees it from a different perspective, and so he asks questions that I don’t think of. Right?

So if I see, it’s like, oh, it’s pretty, and I can use it, and it’s super easy for me, and it’s automated, and then he’ll ask the questions that I didn’t think of. For this particular case, it was literally a Christmas present for me or a holiday present for me because we did sign up in December, and it was, so we used SparkHire. I know that you’re obviously aware of that. And it really had everything that we needed to be successful, and it was such an easy transition from Monday that for this particular use case, I was ready.

I was ready for him to ask me a million questions, and it had everything we needed that it was the easiest, yes, he’s ever given me. And that’s why I say it was my holiday present because he immediately was like, okay. That makes sense. And the cost was really right, and it was going to save from an efficiency standpoint because of that.

JOSH TOLAN: That’s great. What are some of those, like, for other people that are, you know, in a similar position, maybe thinking about standing up their first ATS, they’ve gotta go get executive buy in. What are those questions to expect? Like, what was your CEO asking you or what, you know, broadly would somebody expect in that type of conversation?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. I think probably that and he probably did ask this. Like, why is this better than what we’re currently doing? So that’s the first thing.

And so, obviously, as we talked about, like, the manualness of Monday was just really a lot for me to do again and again. And if we started the new year with it again, like, the amount of data that lived in Monday that sometimes got lost. So one thing that’s nice is when you upload a resume or you put in somebody’s information into Spark Hire, it’ll find you. Right?

But if I’m manually uploading your resume, Monday isn’t an ATS. So it doesn’t do that. So that was one thing. That’s probably the biggest use cases.

What is why is this better than what you’re currently using? Again, like, why should I spend x amount of dollars for this over what you’re currently using? Obviously, most companies use LinkedIn. This particular, product has a LinkedIn integration, which is super helpful.

And so it actually we shrunk our LinkedIn package, which for those everybody knows LinkedIn is an incredibly expensive, investment, and so it saved us money on that end. I actually think that at the end of the day, we’re spending less money because we were able to save on the LinkedIn integration because as soon as we post the position through Spark Hire, it’s already posted on LinkedIn. So just as a little bit of a sales nugget there. Mhmm.

But, so that that’s the other thing is, like, aren’t you using LinkedIn? Don’t you said we need LinkedIn. Like, we have to have LinkedIn. So why do we need that?

That’s the other question. I’m then certainly going to ask about the team members. Are the team members actually going to use this? Is it going to be worthwhile for us to invest in something?

You know, you’re signing on for a twelve-month contract with this company, and we don’t know if it’s gonna work. What are those reasons, or why do you think the team will do a better job with it?

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. Makes a lot of sense. And I think, you know, it’s one thing to compare, here’s what we’re doing today from a cost perspective versus here what we’ll do tomorrow from a cost perspective. And, you know, there’s ways to validate the investment in that way or even say, hey. We’re gonna be saving money because of x, y, and z by going with this other solution versus the status quo.

But what about, like, as far as, like, actual hiring results? Right? Like, at the end of the day, like, the company needs to hire great people. It needs to do it faster. It needs to do it on time so we’ve got those people on the team so they can start performing and contributing to the company’s top line. So, like, how do you compare that against the status quo? Like, how do you validate to somebody on the executive committee with a CEO or a group of people or a CFO that, like, at the end of the day, this solution is going to help us hire better, right, hire better or hire faster, do something to improve our hiring results?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. I think the biggest case point is that we’ve got the analytics behind it to be able to prove that it does. And so with this, again, like, taking, you know, the integration with LinkedIn is great. So whether it is me sourcing through LinkedIn, which is why we still have a LinkedIn recruiter seat, or if it is the postings that are automatically going out to LinkedIn and and the data coming in. Also, everything comes in one spot.

So if we were posting on LinkedIn, sometimes we’ve used Indeed, we’ve used other resources, that means that I am in all these different, platforms to be able to get the data and gathering that. And just from a time saving perspective alone. But there’s also if you applied to our role on LinkedIn and Indeed, and now I’ve pulled you into Monday, you have two profiles. If you apply multiple places through our APS, it finds you, and it links you together.

So just from that, the time saving alone for me being the only recruiter doing the outbound is huge. And so I think that’s something that certainly, like, to highlight, having the ATS, we are at the right size. We, you know, have filled at any time. We have six to eight openings, and that alone speeding through, you know, countless candidates across all of those different roles.

There is just a seamlessness that that exists with it.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And it’s interesting. You mentioned you guys have six to eight open roles at any given time. Like, you’re thirty people right now.

But, generally, you know, I feel like there might be a lot of companies at thirty people. They’re like, oh, we don’t need an ATS. We’ll keep doing the status quo. We’re not big enough.

Yeah. But, like, what is that tipping point? Is it a certain number of, like, growth rules targeted? Because I always tell companies, like, look, you’re also gonna be backfilling, and you have to factor that in, to your hiring plans as well.

So, like, what would you say is the tipping point of volume that, you know, creates that need?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. I think, you know, one thing that we started doing really well last year was resource planning. And so with those six to eight roles, it doesn’t mean we have six to eight openings that we need to fill immediately. They’re really evergreen posts.

So we are building up talent pools and building relationships with future candidates. And so I would say that is that is the case. Like, at the start of the year when we were thinking of, okay, we’re gonna need somebody on our social team. We’re gonna need somebody on our search team.

We’re gonna need somebody on our media strategy team.

So we have so many different openings across the the categories that we need because we don’t know that, yes, we’re gonna have a need today.

We want to make sure that we can have, the talent pool built up. And so I think that really was a really great catalyst for us to be able to know what was happening.

Again, diving into Monday, there’s a lot – it’s great. Like, you have to play around with it. You have to create a lot of the tags. Going into an ATS, you just go to the role. You see everything that you need to see in one one-stop shop. So I think that piece really you know, for a team that is small, you should always have Evergreen Post. Because to your point, there’s gonna be turnover, expected or unexpected.

If you’re an agency and you’re talking to clients, you have no idea what a new client might bring to the table. We have certainly experienced where a client’s budget when they sign with us is this, and then three weeks later, it skyrockets. And so when a client’s budget is higher, you certainly have a need for spending a little bit more money because in making sure that you’ve got the right candidate flows or team a team member flow, excuse me. So those are some of the things that are I think are really important.

And having an ATS with a talent pool is golden because then it’s not just like, oh, I’m maintaining a relationship an email relationship with so and so. And if Eric says, do you remember that candidate we interviewed six weeks ago? Like and then I’m trying to, like, wrap my brain versus just going into the ATS and finding the information. So if even if you’re not really underwater with recruiting and you’re, like, in a good place and you feel really confident, you have no idea what’s gonna happen on Monday morning and how many potential roles you might need to fill.

So the ATS, from a talent pool perspective is awesome. There’s tagging options so you know that you’re gonna go back to. One success story we had, we had a team member who did her Spark Hire interview on Valentine’s Day, and we all loved her. We ended up hiring somebody with a little bit more experience. And then three weeks later three weeks, we realized we needed another person.

She was still available, and she started with us at the end of, April. So there is a huge win for that talent pool element even if you’re not like, oh my god. I have so many roles I need to recruit for. That talent pool really does help to kind of give you a starting off point when enrolled properly.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, for any company that’s in, let’s call it, the professional services category where they’re, like, a people-powered business, and some of their needs for people internally depend on how much a client may scale with their services. And so you don’t necessarily want to be overstaffed, right, because you don’t know when a client may scale those services, and they may never not may they may not, but you need to be building those relationships with the candidates and the talent pipeline. So if they do, you’re not starting from ground zero.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. That’s huge. Because as soon as we do have to start from ground zero, like, the level of anxiety, right, that I’m like, oh my god. They need somebody, and I don’t have anywhere to start. Like, that’s really difficult.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep.

MELANIE SCHEER: And so we we did actually create a brand new role that we’re currently recruiting for, and we were ahead of the game. We’re, like, by the end of the summer, we’re looking to bring on create a creative resource. And so we started out by posting it and just seeing what was out there and getting it. So it was a very we were able to slowly get to where we needed to be.

And, again, that goes back to the fact that we do a really good job with resource planning to know, like, that’s going to be a tipping point, whether it be August or October or whatever the case may be. But it really does, especially with a new role, it’s gonna be a longer cycle than if we are hiring the same type of candidates because we know what we’re looking for. We know what the candidate pool looks like versus a brand-new scope. It’s, you know, it’s starting from scratch.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. 

MELANIE SCHEER: Definitely, resource planning, and having a solid talent pool is is super, super important to be successful.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And I think it also, you know, ties back to the point we’re talking about about getting buy-in from a business outcome standpoint. The reality is if you have these evergreen roles and you’re building the pipeline, your speed to revenue is much quicker when that need does come about because you’re so much ahead of the game. But if you’re not doing that proactive sourcing and you’re not building that pipeline and those relationships, all of a sudden, it’s like, hey. Climb wants to triple their budget, but guess what? We don’t have the people. It’s, like, guaranteed missed revenue for the company.

And so, you know, that’s how I think a lot of people, especially in the professional services space, can tie the things they’re doing with their recruiting systems back to revenue and top-line business outcomes that really speak to, like, CEO, CFO Mhmm. And whoever else is involved at that level.

MELANIE SCHEER: And then from a people perspective, we’re also helping our existing team so that they’re not overwhelmed. So, like, that’s where I look at. Right? Like, you look at revenue because you’re the CEO. I look at the team and make sure that they feel like they’re getting the support. So, like, that’s again that yin and yang, which I think is super helpful to make sure that we do have the resources ready to go as needed.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That’s a really good point. You know, I think especially and that’s where I think the advantage of you, you know, helping on both the talent acquisition side, but then on the rest of the employee experience side is, like, you’ll get a sense of burnout or if workload is too high. Then it’s like, okay.

We’ve gotta you know, maybe we don’t have a a need now, but, like, we gotta pick up the proactive sourcing because, like, seems like we’re almost operating at the red line of capacity, and so we’re close to having a need. And so it’s like, okay. We can press press the gas a bit here on the sourcing side. So I think that’s really an interesting point that you bring up there.

So you make an ATS decision. You’re gonna press ahead.

How do you think about implementation? Like, you’re a one you’re a one-person team, you know, and for most companies that are standing up their first ATS, that’s gonna be the case. They’ve got one or two people in HR slash talent acquisition, kinda doing everything under the sun. It’s like, okay. 

Now let’s stand up an ATS, which can seem a bit daunting, at first. So how do you approach that to make sure, a, implementation goes well, but also, b, you’re not, like, overwhelmed by everything that’s in front of you, which could, I think, in some cases, cause companies to, like, not take the step forward to implement an ATS because they don’t want to, you know, take on all the work that seems like it’s ahead of them.

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. And I will tell you just a little anecdote. So right after I started at ADM, we were struggling with our payroll company.

They were just, like, making a ton of errors. So I was like, that’s it. I’m gonna find a new payroll solution. So I did. And the implementation of a new payroll system is the most daunting thing I’ve ever done in my whole entire life.

It was so much work, so much more work than I expected that I still have PTSD that even when thinking, like, should we switch payroll providers? Nope. Not there yet. Can’t do it.

So I definitely exist. I had that fear, you know. Right? I think the timing for us was great because it was the start of the year, so we were really starting into it. The best thing about the implementation is that the process that was set out for us through Spark Hire was so seamless that it literally was, like, we’re gonna do it in chunks.

And so that really, really helps. But even with, you know, a payroll provider, they try to do it in chunks to really get you acclimated to what it is, and that really helps.

The other thing is that while we had a ton of data in Monday.com, at no point did I want to bring that over. I thought that was just going to muddy the waters. So, I made the decision that we were starting from scratch. We were starting with zero candidates within the ATS.

Now, definitely, if you’re if you’ve got a system and you wanna upload those people, you certainly can. There were a couple of candidates that I, of course, manually uploaded into the system because they were still actively involved, but that really helped. And then if there is somebody that I’m like, I think I met this person before or their name sounds familiar, I can still go to Monday and see if they’re in there, and occasionally they are. But that really was very helpful.

And then I understood it very well before we started using it for real. So before the hiring team started diving into the platform and having questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer. So I started going through.

There was a time where I was starting to interview through the ATS, but I still was having the team use the old model until we were really ready so that it didn’t overwhelm and they didn’t get mixed responses from me. Like, oh, you’re supposed to do this. Oh, no. I got it wrong.

So that it really was very thorough. I think it was a four to six week process, but it did really make it very smooth for us to transition. So you definitely have to set a good chunk of time to spend time with your implementation specialist and really diving into the platform, because just like anything, it’s it is, you know, a a totally new world. But, having it start from scratch was really helpful.

My recommendation on that is start from scratch to begin with, and then if you realize you want all those candidates in the platform, you can do that in an upload type of situation.

But I feel like if we started that way, it would have just been so messy, to not have a fresh start.

JOSH TOLAN: Got it. Yeah. And I think that’s an important point, especially for companies who are looking to stand up their first ATS. It’s like you’re coming from a system that was, you know, hacked together DIY.

Like, you know, it exists over here. That’s what you’re used to using. That’s fine. Like, keep that over there.

Don’t let it be a barrier to trying to figure out, like, okay. How are we gonna map all this unstructured data now to a new system? Instead, like, focus on building the foundation and the processes and the workflows and everything in the new system on a clean slate versus trying to, like, reimplement old processes that were built for, you know, a system that was, you know, cobbled together, you know, start start, fresh.

You also mentioned hiring managers, and I think it was smart that you waited to, like you didn’t, like, throw them in there day one. It’s like you got your feet under you a little bit before you brought them over. So my question two two-part question would be, a, how did you know when they were ready? And, b, how did you get them ready slash excited for that transition given they were so used to using the one project management system that they use for regular, you know, day-to-day jobs?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So I probably didn’t know if they were ready truthfully. It was a little bit of, like, you know, throwing them to the fire because I’m sure they would have been confident just to continue going in the method they were doing. So to answer your first question, it was probably more, like, a push than, like, hey. You guys wanna try this?

Secondly, I introduced that ahead of time. So it wasn’t just putting a towel on the schedule for them to, hey. You’re gonna go do this training, and this is what we’re gonna do. So I definitely provided them a lot of insight why the reason why we were using it, why it was gonna be easier for them, how we were gonna get the data.

It was going to be very seamless. We were going to do a full implementation training that was gonna be recorded so they can revisit it and things of that nature. So definitely setting them up for the why is really important, to make sure that it does make sense. I will say unsolicited compliments on the platform have come even to the day.

We were just in Colorado for our team off-site, and I was sitting at dinner next to one of our associate directors. He’s like, I just wanna let you know I love the ATS. It’s it’s so great. It’s so easy.

Like, so completely unsolicited advice or not advice, unsolicited compliments still are coming from the team. Because, of course, they also aren’t in it all the time. It just depends on when they have an opening. So we’ve got, you know, six associate directors and two directors, and sometimes, you know, they’re in it for a couple weeks.

We fill a role, and then they’re not in it for again. So, definitely, you know, it’s something they need to be able to easily jump back into if they haven’t touched it in a month, six weeks, two months, and that it would be super easy for them.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Alright. My last question is, you know, you start with an ATS.

How do you define like, how do we know this was a good decision? How what success metrics are we monitoring? How do we know what we’ve done is working three, six, twelve months later?

MELANIE SCHEER: Yeah. So we you know, obviously, we’re using the data. Again, we were pretty fortunate that we did start it in q one. So we were you know, most of the the information about our hiring is pretty even.

So a little shout-out to our hiring flow. So in Q1, I think our speed to hire or time to hire was just under sixty days, which was about similar to what I would say I was figuring out on my own manually. And then in Q2, it up it was thirty-eight days, which if you ask any recruiter, like, most people will say sixty days is pretty much average from the time you identify that you need to fill a role till the person starts. And so thirty-eight days, we hired seven people in Q2, which, again, seven people might sound like, you know, nothing if you’re a thousand-person organization.

But remembering that we’re a thirty-person organization, that’s a pretty large chunk of new hires. Yeah. And so that really was the proof in the pudding, if you will, to use affiliate line, that it works because it really was built into the efficiency. Again, going back to things we talked about, the talent pool, Again, you know, we were able to hire somebody because she was in the talent pool, because we interviewed her earlier on in the year, and it’s for us to just dive right into the platform and to be able to see the candidates in there.

The most important thing is time to hire. The other thing to highlight is that it documents how much time our hiring managers are spending in interviews—not just me, but the hiring manager as well. So it’s very much a double-edged sword.

We need to hire, but we also have a job to do, and hiring isn’t our job. Right? So, like, for the hiring managers, really making sure that the amount of time that they’re in interviews is efficient to get to the right person. And so we’ve also seen a decrease in that, which means that we’re able to identify quality over quantity, which, of course, you know, helps in the long run because it’s saving time and then, obviously, saving money.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. Love it. It sounds like you guys have really, you know, narrowed down to focus on a few core metrics that really emphasize both speed because we know the importance of that to getting to the right person, but also quality because you want to not only hire that person fast, but you want them to be a good person that’s not going to stick in the organization for a long time to come. So that’s awesome.

Melanie, this has been great. Super informative. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining me.

You know, there’s just so many insights on this, so I really appreciate it.

MELANIE SCHEER: Thank you, Josh. It was it was a pleasure connecting with you and and chatting through. It’s always fun to kind of speak geek, if you will, because I talk about digital marketing all day long. So it’s nice to talk a little bit more in the recruiting end.

JOSH TOLAN: Awesome. Thank you.