How Skedulo’s partnership with Lab17 reduced its hiring process by 50%

“In a few years we're going to be recognised as a global leader in the deskless productivity industry, supporting over 250,000 users through our platform.”

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Tracey Cheung

Senior People Operations Manager

Skedulo

the problem

Directing Skedulo’s recruitment efforts and expansion of their global team, Head of Engineering, Russell Adcock knew they had a bit of work to do. “Hiring is part of my job, but it was basically consuming 150% of my time,” said Russell. His time management and cost efficiencies were diminishing from the high recruitment demands, and costs spread thin across four recruitment agencies who were primarily bringing in their candidates. Skedulo needed a solution; they needed help.

CONCERNS

TIME MANAGEMENT

COST EFFICIENCIES

CULTURE FIT

INTERVIEW PROCESSING

RECRUITMENT INTEGRATION

Russell Adcock

Senior Director of Engineering

Skedulo

THE CONNECTION

Russell outlined Skedulo’s requirements to get their pathway to scale back on track: 

“We need someone who has existing contacts and a network of candidates. Someone who has experience in implementing a recruiting process into other startups, and most importantly, we need a solution to reduce costs,” he said.  

Whilst Skedulo was looking for an organisation who could assist, Tracey Cheung, Skedulo’s People Operations Manager mentioned Lab 17’s Nick Ingall and Simon Bernardino to the CEO of Skedulo, Matt Fairhurst. Matt had expressed his concerns on their company’s recruitment efforts. Tracey had worked with Lab 17’s Nick Ingall for a number of years across different teams, and recognised the potential partnership.

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The connection was made.

the solution

“I remember walking out of the meeting with Nick feeling like he was the right person to do this with. He just seemed to have the right credentials, with the right drive,” said Russell. “When we came out, we all kind of looked at each other thinking ‘wow this is amazing’. I think he's going to make a difference,” he said. 
 
Skedulo and Lab17 partnered for a 6-month contract with the primary goal of making 12 hires over that period. 

Lab 17 based themselves in Brisbane with Skedulo to help improve their recruitment, progressing to recruit internationally for them after their initial 6-month contract. 
 
Simon, from Lab 17 identifies their point of difference, “We’ve taken our experience from agency recruitment and then look at solving the problem from an internal talent acquisition lens,” he explains. 
 
“Russell never focused on how many candidates Lab17 could source for Skedulo,” said Simon. “He preferred to focus their attention on finding the right talent, helping our recruiting process, suggesting improvements and to help solidify that from Lab17’s experience,” he said. 
 
“We went from just focusing on Brisbane to then helping Skedulo with their recruitment globally.
So, we started working on roles in Sydney, and we even helped them build a product team in Vietnam,” said Simon. 
 
Lab17 went from helping and creating a solution for product delivery teams in Brisbane, to being a global partner for 12 months. 
 

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THE SUCCESS

Since their partnership with Skedulo, Russell noticed how Lab17 were able to make that candidate reach “that we could never do ourselves."
 
Tracey further added how Lab17 were able to find and hire candidates who understood their culture. “That's Lab17’s value add,” she said. “We have consultants that don't make an effort to understand who we are as a team, but Simon was fully embedded and integrated within the company. He would be in the office, and I think that's super important. He understood who and what candidates he should be looking for,” she said. 
 
Part of Lab17's success is being able to “embed ourselves within the organisation, build those relationships with the hiring managers and live and breathe the environment,” said Simon.
 
Within nine months, Lab17 was able to place 24 candidates globally, as opposed to the original 12 placements in 6 months.

“Lab17 improved our hiring process,” said Russell. Within two to three weeks, Russell’s original 40 hours per week spent on recruiting was dropped down to 4 hours per week. “Once they got up and running, I was just attending interviews and giving feedback,” exclaimed Russell. 
 
Overall, Skedulo’s recruitment and hiring process was reduced by 50%. Candidates were placed within two to four weeks, as opposed to four to six weeks. Also noted was the reduced number of interviews. “We used to do ten interviews before making one offer, that’s now changed because of Lab17,” he explained. “A lot of external recruiters just throw resumes at you, and that's a big-time cost because you've got to go through the resumes and work out, ‘is this the right person for Skedulo?’ whereas Simon could really vet that for us. I felt we were getting quality candidates that aligned with what we wanted,” said Russell. 

2-4

weeks

50%

saving

24

placements

50%

reduction

75%

reduction

recruitment cost

globally

process time

placement time

# interviews

IN A NUTSHELL

“Lab17  care a lot about culture fit,” said Tracey. “Being in touch within the tech industry puts them way out in front of a lot of agencies.

They have that ‘flavour’ in making sure that they find the right candidates”, she said.

“Me personally, I'd like to work with them again,” said Russell.

“Series C is something that we want to do next year, which will probably lead to more expansion in terms of hiring. So, I'd like to try and see if we can re-engage with Lab17 again.”