Case Study: Integrating AI With Agile Recruitment

The Challenge

A large regional store chain needed a more efficient, user friendly, and visually appealing mobile app to improve their connection with the 2020 modern shopper. Their current content management system needed an upgrade, so the decision was made to implement Adobe Experience Cloud and React JavaScript to help and deliver the ecommerce experience their customers expected through mobile accessibility.

Adobe Experience Manager is one of the most recognized content management platforms on the market. Each piece of the CMS is custom built for the user to ensure maximum efficiency, allowing all users the highest return on the investment.

By adopting an AI-driven decision-making process, implementing more streamlined maintenance, and switching to a single-page app, the company believed that they were on the quick road to success. To their understanding, their current in-house team would be capable of executing all their new systems’ benefits easily, with the resources they already had at their disposal.

However, they encountered some unexpected challenges:

Covid-19 raised the already high bar on mobile CX standards;
The lack of available and qualified developers living in proximity to the company’s headquarters;
They were challenged with how to effectively source, screen, and hire talent in the Adobe Experience Cloud market;
The company needed guidance on how to best implement these high-end systems into their existing processes.

Our Consultation

Computer Futures’ recruitment specialists connected with the company’s manager through a well-established network within the Adobe Experience Cloud industry. Acting in the best interest of the client, our team consulted with the company to identify what was not working in their talent acquisition processes.

Our client’s initial preference for onsite talent put them at a disadvantage, as contractors will not often relocate for a role, particularly a short-term one. Qualified professionals in the tech industry, especially in the Content Management space, expect the benefit of remote work options.

The client’s hiring process was optimized for hiring full-time employees, not for competitively onboarding project-based tech contractors, requiring three rounds of interviews and a 3-hour code test. The time delay resulted in lost opportunities to obtain top talent.

There was a gap between the company and the talent best matched to their needs. The company had been inundated with candidates who were not the right fit or skilled enough.

Our Approach

Thanks to the well-established network and reputation Computer Futures had constructed over the last 8 years, our specialists happened upon a skilled developer perfectly suited to the client’s needs that was relocating to their headquartered location.

Though he was seeking full-time employment, Computer Futures negotiated with both parties, culminating in the developer accepting the opportunity to perform contract work. Three years later, the contractor has become a full-time employee, and the company has an experienced, skilled stakeholder in their success helping them hire additional talent through Computer Futures.

As a result of the global pandemic, almost every company had to adapt to a more virtual-friendly culture. Opening up to fully remote contractors allowed the company access to a much wider talent pool and attracted better developers against competing companies.

By the time it became clear that Covid-19 would not go away by June 2020 as everyone initially thought, the client had seen the true value of embracing the virtual business model. True to form, Computer Futures recruitment specialists were hard at work in the background creating a pipeline of potential candidates months before their current contracts were to end, ensuring access to them at the opportune moment.

Once the client got a glimpse of the dedication, resourcefulness, and proactive initiative that Computer Futures professionals demonstrated, a trusting professional relationship began to take form. Trust and buy-in to the method having been established, the client accepted that their hiring process required a more agile approach.

Because the client was being presented only with ideally matched potential contractors for their needs, they were able to streamline their lengthy recruiting and interview process. In favor of better results with less effort on their part, the client felt empowered to make an offer to a candidate after a one-hour interview.

The Result

Computer Futures helped the client evolve their hiring process to an agile format, allowing them to pivot to meet the needs of the Covid-19 culture and the modern shopper.

The client was challenged with the process to upgrade and overhaul their outdated value proposition at the least convenient possible time. Modifying their site and mobile app with hundreds of pages, thousands of products, and deploying a more customer-centric user interface was no easy task for our client.

By assisting them to conduct the work in-house with quality contractors, Computer Futures helped the client make their new software work for them. Rather than use resources that were more costly and would have been checked out once the project was over, Computer Futures’ dedication to quality relationships gave the client access to individuals more vested in the company’s success.