The Center for Student Missions Streamlines Seasonal Hiring Across Cities with Hyrell
About the Center for Student Missions
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The Center for Student Missions (CSM) is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. CSM provides college aged individuals with short-term urban mission trips opportunities in eleven cities around the United States.
The Challenge of High Volume, Distributed Hiring
The Center for Student Missions recruits between 75 and 100 seasonal interns each year to lead urban mission trips across eleven American cities. In addition, the not-for-profit organization hires between two and four new full-time staff members annually. The volume of applications coming in, especially for seasonal interns, is high. Marquita Farmer, CSM’s Human Resources Coordinator is continually organizing the seasonal hiring process with teams in the eleven cities, as well as managing full-time hires herself.
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CSM implemented Hyrell recruiting software over one year ago to handle applicant tracking, reference checks, and onboarding. Before Hyrell, Farmer and the city managers struggled with the burden of the organization’s high volume, distributed hiring process. “It was tough to keep all of the candidates’ documents organized,” said Farmer. “We really needed to keep hiring-related communications and appointments separate, but it just wasn’t possible before Hyrell. We would communicate with applicants through our regular work email accounts and messages would get lost among other unrelated emails. In addition, when we scheduled interviews on our work calendars, appointments sometimes fell off the radar.”
Automating Hiring Processes and Enabling Cross-City Collaboration
After CSM launched Hyrell, hiring became much easier for everyone. Since CSM runs a lean organization, Farmer handles the administrative aspects of the system, as well as day-to-day recruiting related activities. She highlighted how Hyrell has improved CSM’s hiring processes:
The Administrator Functionality is Powerful, But Easy to Use.
Farmer recently took over as the organization’s Hyrell administrator. “The transition from using the software as a recruiter to becoming the System Administrator was easy. I was already familiar with the system, so it only took about an hour and half of training to get up to speed with the Administrator features.”
CSM Has Been Impressed with the Flexibility of the System.
Farmer likes that as the Administrator, she can create templates for email messages that are generated by the system. This saves time for the city managers and also presents a consistent image to applicants.
The customizable reference forms and jobs descriptions are also beneficial. “By creating our own reference forms, we’ve been able to get a deeper picture of candidates,” said Farmer.
Virtual Interviews Offer Greater Insight into Candidates.
CSM wants applicants to understand the challenges upfront they may face while leading mission trips. As a result, they have designed Virtual Interview questions related to topics like conflict resolution and community living. Another benefit of the Virtual Interviews is that they enable candidates who are strong writers to shine. “Some candidates write better than they interview. Hyrell’s Virtual Interviews help us get a more complete view of applicants,” Farmer noted.
All Applicant Documents, Communications, and Appointments are Organized in One Location.
For CSM, one of the biggest benefits of Hyrell has been the online applicant files that centralize every piece of information. “Having everything in one place has been magical,” said Farmer. “We communicate with candidates strictly through Hyrell and schedule interviews with the built-in calendar functionality. The system keeps everything organized and moving.”
City Managers Can Share Candidates and Collaborate on Hiring.
At a recent staff retreat, the city managers reported that they loved how Hyrell had organized hiring information and streamlined the process. Through Hyrell, city managers can access applicants for job postings in other locations. Farmer mentioned “Sometimes, for example, we have a candidate who interviews in New York, but might do better in a smaller city. In that situation, city managers can easily collaborate and share applicants.”
Online Reference Checks and Onboarding Cuts Down on Paperwork.
CSM uses Hyrell to initiate online reference checks and to distribute onboarding documents to new hires. Completed, digital documents are stored in each applicant’s file. Farmer mentioned “One of the great things about the onboarding is that information can be downloaded for several new hires in bulk and sent to payroll to upload to their systems. It eliminates a lot of manual work and data entry.”
Candidates Like the System.
At the end of each season, CSM’s staff meets with interns and part of the discussion includes an evaluation of the hiring process. “An overwhelming number of our interns love Hyrell’s online hiring process,” said Farmer.
The Bottom Line
Based on CSM’s experience with Hyrell, Marquita Farmer would recommend the system to other not-for-profits without reservation. Farmer advised to “Just do it. Hyrell’s customer service is outstanding and the software will make life easier, especially if you process a large number of applicants.”
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