How Chapman University customized their PeopleAdmin workflow to meet the institution’s specific needs.
Robin Borough, the Director of Talent Acquisition at Chapman University in Orange, CA, has been using PeopleAdmin’s Applicant Tracking System since she joined Chapman’s HR department in 2019. Coming from a 25-year corporate environment, Robin was excited to be adding the collegial and collaborative environment of a university to her professional portfolio —but she also brought a different perspective about efficiency. As she began to build Chapman’s professional recruiting practice from the ground up, Robin saw an opportunity to utilize PeopleAdmin in new ways.
The Importance of Workflow
In the world of higher education, hiring committees are larger, budgets are paramount, and schools and colleges can act almost independently within a university. These variables and numerous decision-makers mean that hiring is more complex and workflows can get confusing. “Workflow is PeopleAdmin’s core competency,” says Robin.
When Robin arrived at Chapman University, she found that that there was not a resource dedicated to PeopleAdmin and the system wasn’t being fully utilized. Recognizing the potential with some focused attention on the development needs of the system, Robin took a proactive approach, reaching out to and working closely with the PeopleAdmin support team as she pinpointed the institution’s specific needs. Saving time on rote work and implementing a smooth workflow were at the top of Robin’s list, and she was committed to finding the solution with PeopleAdmin.
Through one-on-one Zoom sessions with PeopleAdmin’s tech support team and engineers, Chapman’s student employment process was
completely overhauled, and the team was able to create a custom solution that fit Chapman’s needs. PeopleAdmin representatives who worked with Chapman commented that no one else had done what Chapman has done with their new system.
This level of service and access to the team is atypical of software vendors, and Robin was refreshed and happy by the partnership she formed. “Typically support teams just respond to the ticket. When you can’t talk to someone, it can be difficult to explain the issue. PeopleAdmin’s tech support is very responsive and accessible,” said Robin. “The engineer reached out to schedule a Zoom call where we were able to show the issue in real time and see how to fix it. That can save weeks of back and forth.”
Flexibility for Every Need
Through the Applicant Tracking System, Chapman has built a dashboard where the whole university can now see the status of their hires from applications and interviews all the way through DocuSign. ATS has removed the mystery from hiring for everyone involved in the hiring process and, at the same time, has allowed Robin to redistribute her team’s time. “All of that checking back on status— ‘is it done, is it ready, what’s the status’—doesn’t happen anymore,” Robin says. “Our shared email inbox was 200-300 check-in emails a week, and now it’s less than 100. That’s all because of the dashboard bringing transparency of process to the end-user.”
ATS is not just a time-saver for Robin, however. “Corporations don’t have as many decision makers as colleges and universities,” Robin noted about the hiring process. Within each job search at Chapman, huge chunks of time are taken up by the burden of paperwork that allows every member of a hiring committee to weigh in. The Applicant Tracking System allows all members of a committee to view and submit paperwork in one place, and Robin estimates that this saves 3 hours of administrative work per job order. Between 50-200 hires per month across the university, that’s 150-600 hours of unnecessary paperwork avoided. Speeding up the hiring process “helps HR make a difference for the campus,” says Robin. “It improves our brand and our reputation across campus.
The Benefits of Training
Robin’s number one recommendation to other PeopleAdmin users: take advantage of PeopleAdmin’s Certified Administrator Training to get
even more out of the platform. The training amplified Robin’s ability to save time for herself, for her team, and for the entire campus. “We had an amazing trainer who taught us about shortcuts and filters, and showed me functionalities that I didn’t even know existed,” Robin told us. Through her training, she was able to set up shortcuts for every user at Chapman to have easy access to the pages they need. She thinks schools would benefit from having multiple people trained: “You can do more with the tool if more people know how to use it.”
Robin’s other recommendation? “Press in. Take advantage of the way PeopleAdmin helps you customize to achieve your goals. There’s a lot more to these tools than people know about.”
Learn how PeopleAdmin can help your institution streamline your processes.
Fill out the form below to speak with a PeopleAdmin representative.
Thank you. A PeopleAdmin representative will contact you shortly.