Online Marketplace Recruiting

Overview

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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 began looking into applicant tracking systems (ATS) but found that many systems’ rigid capabilities didn’t support her team’s need for agility and alignment. When an old contract ended, Mindy opted to try SJM because of its ease-of-use, affordability and flexible month-tomonth contract.

Right from the start, she was impressed with the platform’s usability. “SJM’s system is the only tool I’ve seen in my entire career that I could literally start using myself the day I turned it on — it does work from Day 1,” Mindy says. From the price point and flexibility to the intuitiveness of the system, “SJM ended up being better than I expected — and we loved it so much as an organization.” She adds, “I think the other bonus of SJM is the amazing community and the amazing webinars. I like how SJM up-levels the community of practice.”

Six months after starting to use SJM, Ziff Davis B2B acquired Spiceworks, adding the company to its family of six other brands. SJM’s tools were instrumental in easing the transition. Spiceworks had the only in-house recruiting team, so they began sourcing candidates on behalf of other business groups and units. Mindy explains that hiring managers near and far had to adapt to SJM quickly — “and they love it!”

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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 openings and interact with each other, seamlessly adding candidate feedback and advancing top talent to the review stage. Thanks to SJM’s built-in email capabilities, all correspondence and candidate data are securely housed in one central location.

Even when the recruiting team lost a staff member, SJM quickly filled the gap. “We had such a strong tool with SJM, we realized we didn’t need a recruiting coordinator. The scheduling is so much easier and faster with SJM,” Mindy says. She also noted that productivity increased because “everyone is in one tool doing one thing. You’re not multitasking; you’re focused.”

As an agile practitioner, Mindy emphasizes the time savings and increased productivity SJM has allowed her department. Spiceworks is currently evolving their sourcing philosophy and taking advantage of SJM’s LinkedIn Recruiter integration. The team uses Calendly integration for candidate self-scheduling and has streamlined the interview process thanks to Interview Guides.

Mindy notes that even gathering candidate feedback is a breeze with SJM’s Discussion Tabs and Workflows despite their team recently shrinking: “You’re not running after people to collect their feedback and then save it all in one place. It’s just all there in the system, which is why we were able to go down an entire resource.”

Mindy also loves how customizable the tools are, noting that “you’re never stuck with one way to do things.” This flexibility is essential to Spiceworks, because “the needs of the business are always changing.” With SJM, she says her team can adapt quickly without having to submit an IT ticket and wait for a rigid system to be completely reengineered.

And, as new tools have become available, Mindy has enjoyed beta-testing different processes in her ATS. “I love that every quarter I’m seeing new features being added or new integration capabilities with like-minded HR partners or tools,” she says.

The time-saving benefits and streamlined communication made possible through SJM have also trickled down to an improved candidate journey. “We leveled-up our interview experience and candidate experience when we moved to SJM,” Mindy notes.

The employee experience has improved as well: Instead of needing to add more people to address new problems, the HR team at Spiceworks now has the time and resources to help their company work smarter to simplify and align their processes.

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