SJM Helps Spiceworks Build an Agile Team

Client Overview

• Customer since February 2019
• Headquarters in Austin, Texas
• Founded in 2006
• Website: www.spiceworks.com

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About

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Spiceworks Ziff Davis is a marketplace platform that connects tech buyers with tech sellers. Founded in 2006, the company empowers IT professionals to use technology to improve their organizations and communities as a whole.

Mindy Honcoop joined the Spiceworks team as the Senior Manager of People Operations in 2018. The company was acquired in August 2019 by New York-based marketing firm Ziff Davis B2B. Mindy now serves as the Executive Director of People at Spiceworks Ziff Davis.

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The Challenge

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When Mindy arrived at Spiceworks, the company had a history of building out teams to solve problems — and its size had grown to about 300 employees as a result. But leadership was struggling “to simplify and align systems and processes” and wanted to embrace automation tools in their recruitment process.

Spiceworks took a holistic view of the infrastructure throughout its hiring funnel.

Mindy began by tackling the candidate and employee experience. “My job was to look at the roadmap of an employee from A through Z,” Mindy says. She ultimately devised a “systems heatmap” that highlighted points of integration across their HR tech stack.

Mindy quickly noticed that they “were not integrated — at all. We had systems that were very siloed and could not connect with each other. At the time, we did a lot of manual work and had a lot of spreadsheets in emails that were floating around from one person to the next.” Mindy’s team realized they needed to prioritize systems quality over quantity and adopt a more sophisticated and streamlined solution.

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The Solution

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Mindy’s search for an applicant tracking system (ATS) for her team’s agile and aligned needs was unsuccessful due to many systems’ inflexibility. Then, she decided to partner with SJM. Mindy was very impressed with the affordability and quality of SJM’s recruiting services. Six months later, when Ziff Davis B2B acquired Spiceworks, SJM’s tools were essential in simplifying the transition.

SJM proved to be an excellent recruiting partner for Mindy and her team’s agile and aligned needs. Mindy was pleased that hiring managers, both near and far, adapted to SJM’s recruiting tools quickly.

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The Results

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Mindy and her colleagues value the open communication lines available through SJM. All stakeholders can see current job openings and interact with each other seamlessly, adding candidate feedback and advancing top talent to the review stage. Even when the recruiting team lost a staff member, SJM quickly filled the gap, allowing for easier and faster scheduling.

As an agile practitioner, Mindy emphasizes the time savings and increased productivity that SJM has allowed her department. They are taking advantage of SJM’s LinkedIn Recruiter integration and Calendly integration for candidate self-scheduling. The team has streamlined the interview process with Interview Guides and is able to gather candidate feedback with SJM’s Discussion Tabs and Workflows, making it easier despite their team recently shrinking.

Mindy loves how flexible SJM is, noting that “you’re never stuck with one way to do things.” This flexibility is essential to Spiceworks, as the needs of the business are always changing. With SJM, she says her team can adapt quickly to any challenges they face.