Supernova Award Category

The Problem

No process. No control. No visibility.

Atlassian, one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world, was stuck using outdated recruitment technology that did not support their growth strategy of doubling year over year.  They had invested in a legacy Applicant Tracking System that required workarounds, prevented access to data, and most importantly provided an awful candidate experience that did not match their desired brand.

Their TA team managed multiple systems that controlled various stages of their recruiting process.  This forced Atlassian to rely on spreadsheets to manage and track all candidates in their pipeline. They found themselves spending more time on manual work than actually focusing on recruiting.  This of course multiplied their work.

With an applicant tracking system that was not able to integrate with other vendors, let alone the fact that no Atlassian employees used it, they felt blind when it came to relying on data to drive smart decisions. Their process, systems, and now data were all over the place.

Finally, their hiring process was completely against the company's values. There was ZERO collaboration in hiring. Recruiters were not sharing best practices and hiring managers/interviewers were not sharing feedback.  Pile this on top of doubling their growth year over year and it became an utter mess. Not a great look when hiring is your CEO’s #1 goal.

The Solution

Atlassian had a clear goal when they decided to overhaul their recruitment process: They needed a one-stop shop to support their need to hire the best.  A true Talent Acquisition Platform, where all of their recruitment tools (job boards, sourcing vendors, mobile capability, referrals, assessment vendors, and interview management could be centralized in one place) and processes could be managed.  They needed to stop wasting time on manual workarounds and get back to hiring the great talent that separates Atlassian from the rest.  Focusing on candidate experience and hiring manager engagement would ultimately fuel their ability to present redefine their employer brand.

It sounds impossible given the current state of the ATS landscape but after an extensive search, Atlassian replaced their legacy ATS with SmartRecruiters. SmartRecruiters gave Atlassian a tool that behaved more like a platform than a file cabinet. Their was hope to Market, Collaborate, and Manage.

The results

SmartRecruiters was a huge win for Atlassian. It had not only a much easier way to manage all the hiring process, but it integrated to all 25 other recruitment tools that Atlassian used, including 15 job boards, Workday HCM, sourcing tools like Entelo and LinkedIn Recruiter, candidate assessments like HackerRank and single sign-on.

Atlassian no longer needed to copy and paste job descriptions to different job boards, deploy manually assessments, or go in and out from LinkedIn Recruiter: everything is integrated and in sync, in one single interface.

This nearly tripled their overall recruiting productivity. To add, Atlassian significantly increased their Hiring Manager and employee engagement by utilizing things like in-product messaging to share candidate information with each other internally. Atlassian feels fortunate to have chosen SmartRecruiters. “We couldn’t have scaled from 500 to 1,400 employees in such small period of time without SmartRecruiters. “It has become a strategic partner to our business.” - Shaye Cole, Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Operations.

Metrics

Throught increased collaboration and transparency, Atlassian has been able to hit steep hiring goals with industry best recrutiment stats:

700 hires in 18 months

$0.07 cost per candidate

$1.19 cost per interview

$5.33 cost per hire

The Technology

SmartRecruiters.

Recruiting is a fragmented, opaque process undermined by outdated technology that turns off candidates and hiring managers. SmartRecruiters imagined a world where it’s easy to find great candidates, it’s easy for people to show interest in jobs, it’s easy for hiring teams to collaborate, and your recruiting vendors are just a click away.

They not only imagined that world. They delivered it.

Disruptive Factor

Everyone is incredibly frustrated by how hard it is to find amazing talent. SmartRecruiters shared that frustration. But instead of building another outdated business technology that end users were sure to reject, they built a tool for the two most important players in the hiring process- the hiring managers and candidates. By focusing on user experieince first and promoting transparency and collaboration, they have been able to capture the attention of the end users and give them the ability to regain control as they shape and scale their teams.  As a result, this has increased time to hire without sacrifing quality of hire.  

Shining Moment

You always face obstacles when change is required; user rejection, process remap, this list goes on.  What Atlassian noticed through implementation was that their biggest critics, their hiring managers, welcomed this change in technology and process with open arms.  SmartRecruiters humanized recruiting which provided confidence to those hiring teams that this was a change for the better.  With a positive first impression and early user adoption, Atlassian was able to hire faster and smarter.