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SyncD with Opencast

Case Study

Rapidly scaling a leading digital consultancy. Meeting tight delivery timeframes and changing demand within competitive User Centered Design, Software Delivery, Tech Architecture and Data markets. Partnered optimisation of recruitment practice.

The Situation

Founded in 2012, Opencast is a rapidly growing digital consultancy that prides itself on ‘building it right’ and maintaining the values-driven culture that the business is built upon. Their specialists work across sectors including global finance and growth enterprise, providing a range of digital and technical consultancy services.

Having recently secured several long-term programmes of work, Opencast needed to scale at a rate that their previous recruitment capability couldn’t support, doubling in size over a 12 month period. They engaged SyncD to partner with their internal recruitment capability to realise this growth.

Our goals were to:

    • Successfully meet tight delivery timeframes in-line with client project commencement dates
    • Meet desired permanent and contract hiring rate Design, Software Engineering, Technical Architecture and Data Analytics
    • Identify and access suitable talent hubs within the UK and abroad
    • Mitigate the reliance on external recruitment agencies
    • Optimise recruitment processes in partnership with Opencast’s internal team

Our Approach

SyncD initially deployed an Account Director and 2 Talent Partners within Opencast to focus on User Centered Design and Engineering hiring, however this team scaled flexibly over the course of the project in line with client demand. At its peak the team comprised of 5 talent partners each owning an area of Opencast’s workforce plan  (User Centered Design, Software Development, Dev-Ops, Quality Assurance & Data Analytics), as well as managing other ad-hoc hiring needs.

SyncD consultants integrated within the existing Talent Engagement team and built relationships with internal stakeholders to understand their requirements, pain points and gain further insight into the business to address their needs.

Successful delivery was achieved through:

  • Working closely with Opencast’s Head of Planning and Insight to manage delivery against client demand, assessing the need to hire contract or permanent staff, and to engage and manage 3rd parties where necessary to ensure deadlines were met
  • Proactively headhunting the best passive talent in the market
  • Managing direct/referred candidates and external recruitment agencies to ensure consistent candidate and hiring manager experience regardless of candidate source
  • Participating and leading interviewing processes from initial outreach to final interview, offer management and candidate aftercare
  • Contributing to recruitment process optimisation, salary benchmarking, and recruitment marketing strategy
  • Supporting hiring managers in job requirements’ definition
  • Proficiently managing Opencast’s applicant tracking system, Lever
  • Supporting and mentoring new internal recruitment team members

Hires

Month Project

1 Account Director
2-5 Talent Partners

UCD, Software Delivery, Engineering, Architecture, Data

Our Results

  • 93 vacancies filled across User Centered Design, Software Delivery, Engineering, Architecture and Data (74 permanent and 19 contract hires) – 49 headhunted directly
  • Supported recruitment process improvements and reduced the time to hire
  • Opencast/SyncD blended talented engagement team won the Excellence in Resourcing and Reward category at the CIPD North-East of England awards

Lorna Madden

Head of Talent Engagement

“On the back of a significant hyper growth at Opencast and our plans to double the headcount over 2022, we decided to explore an RPO arrangement with SyncD. We were initially assigned an Account Manager and two Talent Partners to support the programme of work, and to act as extension of our internal Talent Engagement team.

Throughout the programme, this type of approach has given us experienced Talent Acquisition Partners, access to talent, increased knowledge of the market and a clear understanding of any challenges we may be faced with.

Despite this being an exceptionally talent-short and competitive market, we’ve worked collaboratively in an open and trusted way to achieve successful delivery. Above all the team are absolutely dedicated and have taken the time to understand our culture and values, we simply work as one team and it shows.”

Chris Chapman SyncD
Contact Us
If you’re interested in finding out more about how we could support your growth plans, get in touch with me.

Chris Chapman

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