Texas Christian University

The challenge

Established in 1873, Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private, values-centered university in Fort Worth, Texas that employs more than 2,200 people. It was recently ranked as a top 100 national university for the 13th consecutive year.

TCU’s HR team recognized that to uphold its reputation as a leading higher education institution, and meet the rising expectations of candidates and team members, its recruitment function needed to evolve.

They identified two key challenges.

First, recruitment metrics revealed they were missing out on candidates. Despite posting more job ads, incomplete application numbers were rising and overall application numbers were falling.

Next, internal team members needed support. As a lean HR team, they were overwhelmed by manual, time-consuming processes. Hiring managers were also expressing the need for more assistance, information, and processes to create a positive candidate experience and hire the right people.

The focus

Lead Applications Consultant at TCU Michael Sanders began by partnering with key faculty members and departments with unique hiring needs.

Gaining feedback and trust was the first step. To tailor a new recruitment process and provide guidance to these key stakeholders, TCU had to gain their buy-in while still giving them ownership over recruitment.

Their next focus was the candidate experience.

Recruitment metrics revealed their costly investment in job boards wasn’t delivering ROI. After digging into the metrics using PageUp’s powerful ATS analytics, they found the majority of candidates and successful hires were coming through TCU’s careers site. They decided to invest their efforts on driving traffic to this channel.

“Corporate organizations might have more resources, but TCU is such a great place to work with a supportive culture and so many benefits,” said Sanders. “Improving our careers site was the best way for us to share these unique differentiators, highlight the authentic voices of our diverse team members, and put our best foot forward to candidates.”

But this solution had to be agile and scalable – something HR could build and manage themselves. They needed to reduce the burden on their busy marketing team, and post jobs quickly for departments with urgent hiring requirements.

TCU also needed to transform the recruitment process to deliver a world-class candidate experience.

“Our application process was long, outdated, and required duplicate information. The recruitment process was also confusing for our candidates and hiring managers because they weren’t receiving the information and communication they needed,” said Sanders.

TCU needed a recruitment marketing and recruitment management solution to solve these challenges.

The solution

TCU’s HR team implemented PageUp’s Applicant Tracking System to reduce the length and complexity of applications, and complemented this system with PageUp Recruitment Marketing to attract candidates into their recruitment funnel.

Now, TCU’s talent team can send follow-up emails to candidates with incomplete applications and notify top candidates about new job opportunities. Statuses enable them to facilitate communication internally with hiring managers, and externally with candidates. Plus, enhanced reporting features give them the ability to continue to review and improve diversity metrics for applicants and career site visitors.

Looking to the future, PageUp Recruitment Marketing is allowing the team to build an attractive, engaging careers site that’s easy to edit and customize. Together with their marketing team, they’ve established clear brand guidelines and job templates to quickly get open roles live. PageUp’s DIY career site builder allows Sanders’ team to easily update content and job listings when required.

After transforming their software and processes, TCU is going from strength to strength – improving recruitment metrics and receiving positive feedback from department leaders. They’re looking forward to implementing the next phase of their recruitment strategy with PageUp.

“PageUp has made us so much more efficient and better positioned to meet the needs of our applicants and departments. If you’re a talent professional: don’t settle for the status quo. Asking tough questions and leading change management can be daunting, but it’s worth it. Great applicants will be pursued by someone – make it you!”