Columbia University

Three standout metrics

60 day

implementation timeline

Zero

IT skills required

30%

drop in applications reversed

The voice of the customer

“I can tell you with full confidence that I walked into this project with zero IT skills. If I can do it, anybody can do it. The system is incredibly user-friendly and you will see the results immediately.”

Demi Williams, Director, Talent Acquisition, Columbia University

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What wasn’t working

Columbia University is a globally renowned Ivy League institution with 17 schools across 5 campuses and 11,500 staff and faculty. Their hiring model is highly decentraliseddecentralized and had been working well until COVID-19 hit. The pandemic changed everything for their talent acquisition strategy.

Historically, Columbia used its name and reputation to attract top talent, but after the pandemic competition for the brightest and best intensified:

Application volumes dropped 30% for higher education roles;
Talent flocked to corporate employers offering remote work and higher salaries;
The team had limited ability to engage and nurture candidates who had registered interest but didn’t immediately apply.

The turning point

Associate Vice President Liz Braden and Director of Talent Acquisition Demi Williams recognisedrecognized they needed to transform approach at the top of the hiring funnel. They needed two things. First, they needed tools to attract, engage and nurture candidates earlier in the journey. And second, they needed access to deeper analytics so they could pinpoint what worked, what didn’t, and refine their strategy accordingly.

The shift began in three phases:

Career site transformation

Using PageUp, Columbia implemented a no-code career site with custom calls to action and on-brand landing pages targeting key talent segments.
Proactive candidate engagement

Using PageUp’s CRM capabilities and automated communication workflows, the team were able to stay connected with potential candidates and build talent pipelines.
Data-informed optimisationoptimization

The team used PageUp’s comprehensive analytics to evaluate sourcing channel effectiveness and recruitment campaign performance, refining their approach accordingly.

The solution in action

Columbia accelerated their talent attraction by implementing PageUp Recruitment Marketing in just 60 days – a remarkably fast process for a consensus-driven university environment.

Key initiatives included:

No-code career site management

PageUp gave the team a no-code career site which they owned fully without depending on IT or marketing for content updates.
Automated candidate nurturing

Custom communication flows kept potential candidates engaged throughout their decision-making process, building pipelines for hard-to-fill positions.
Comprehensive analytics and reporting

Deep-dive reporting tracked sourcing channel effectiveness and candidate journey stages, allowing the team to adjust their approach where necessary.
Seamless ATS integration

Perfect integration with Columbia’s existing PageUp ATS allowed end-to-end tracking and evaluation of the entire candidate experience.
Developing talent pipelines

Developing talent pipelines was new for Columbia. PageUp’s CRM capabilities enabled proactive outreach and relationship building with prospective candidates.

The impact

Hard ROI

60 day implementation process
30% application volume decline reversed
Zero IT experience required to manage full system
Immediate activity increase within hours of career site launch

Soft ROI

Greater autonomy for HR team in managing recruitment marketing activities.
Greater visibility into where jobseekers were coming from and sourcing channel effectiveness.
Strengthened and scaled up support for decentraliseddecentralized departmental hiring teams.
Custom communication workflows improved both candidate and hiring teams’ experience.

What surprisedsurprized us the most

“This was an incredibly fast implementation for us. We are a university that requires a lot of consensus, conversation, and buy-in. So to do this in 60 days has been really incredible.”

Demi Williams, Director of Talent Acquisition, Columbia University