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

Skedulo is the Deskless Productivity Cloud. It's one solution to manage your deskless workforce

Talent challenges

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. Costs were spread thin across four recruitment agencies who were primarily bringing in their candidates. Skedulo needed a simpler and more cost effective solution. 

• Time management

• Cost efficiencies

• Culture fit

• Interview process

• Recruitment integration

The connection

Russell outlined Skedulo’s requirements to get their pathway to scale back on track: 
 
'We need to engage with 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 a solution, Tracey Cheung, Skedulo’s People Operations Manager who had worked with Lab 17’s Nick Ingall for a number of years across different teams, 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, and Tracey recognised the potential partnership.

The connection was made.

“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."

'I remember walking out of the meeting with Nick (co founder of The Lab17) 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 looked at each other thinking ‘wow this is amazing’. I think he's going to make a difference.'
 
Skedulo and Lab17 partnered for an initial 6-month contract with the primary goal of making 12 hires over that period. 

The Lab 17 based themselves in Brisbane with Skedulo to help improve their recruitment, progressing to recruit internationally for them after their initial agreement. 
 
Simon, from Lab 17 identifies their point of difference, 'We challenge the traditional style of agency recruitment. We look through an internal talent acquisition lens,' he explains. 
 
'Russell never focused on how many candidates Lab17 could source for Skedulo,' said Simon. 'We focus on finding the right talent, and after we designed the talent strategy, we worked on improving systems and build internal capabilities. Russell and the Skedulo team trusted that we would deliver.'
 
“We went from just focusing on Brisbane to then helping Skedulo with their recruitment globally. So, we started working on roles in Sydney, and  helped them build a product team in Vietnam,” said Simon. 
 
 

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. 

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.'

“The Lab17  care a lot about culture fit. Being in touch within the tech industry puts them way out in front of a lot of agencies."

Back to case studies