CASE STUDY
Helping a tech startup hire with confidence
BridgeCare is a women-led tech startup that provides child care data and technology solutions for government agencies, and helps improve access to early childhood education for all. Demand for their services had been increasing rapidly, so they were eager to grow their team, but they were new to the hiring process and needed guidance. BridgeCare came to us because they were looking for a custom end-to-end hiring solution to help them build a diverse, values-aligned team, starting with filling a new Customer Success Manager position.
The Challenge
As a mission-driven company committed to helping child care and learning providers (who are disproportionately women of color) thrive, it was important that BridgeCare’s hiring strategy reflect their values from start to finish.
They needed someone with the right skills and experience who shared a passion for the company’s mission and could flourish in a small, remote start-up environment.
With a growing influx of new clients to serve, the team was already stressed and overloaded. The founder understood the cost of a bad hire, and was concerned that a misstep at this critical point in their business’ growth would be a serious setback.
The Solution
A company is its people. At Handprint, we specialize in supporting purpose-driven businesses in their search for values-aligned talent. Using a systems thinking approach, we worked with BridgeCare to identify their true needs and design an effective, replicable hiring process that would attract great candidates, mitigate bias, and help them grow their team with confidence.
Our Objectives
Discover and articulate BridgeCare’s story, mission, purpose, vision, and values in a beautifully designed company profile.
Design an end-to-end hiring process that supports BridgeCare from applications to screening, interviewing, and onboarding.
Create a listing for the Customer Success Manager role that attracts values-aligned talent, then assist BridgeCare in finding the perfect person for the position.
The Process
1. Client Discovery
The first step in our work with BridgeCare was to meet the team and gain a full understanding of the company, its goals, challenges, and how they would define success. While they had some existing marketing materials, we found that there was an opportunity to help them tell a more cohesive company story with talent in mind. It also became clear that BridgeCare needed to find a self-motivated Customer Success Manager who would represent the company with professionalism and foster long-term relationships with their customers.
2. Company & Team Story
We then focused on telling BridgeCare’s story to let potential candidates know what BridgeCare is all about, what they believe in, their values and impact. We looked at their current company story, mission, purpose, vision, and core value statements, then conducted a deeper dive through a combination of interviews and proprietary discovery tools. We synthesized our findings and worked with the BridgeCare team to draft the final copy and ensure it was authentic to who they were as a company. Finally, we designed and built an online profile to make it easy for talent to get to know BridgeCare and the team.
3. Job Listing & Marketing
Once the company profile and team story were complete, we shifted our attention to the Customer Success Manager position. We interviewed the BridgeCare team to capture the essence of the role (what the day-to-day would look like, who they'd work with, what tools they’d use, what challenges they’d face, and the traits and attributes that would make someone successful in the role and on the team), and used our findings to draft the initial job description and application form. Since it’s often colleagues, not supervisors, who can best articulate what they’re needing and expecting from coworkers, we provided our drafts to the BridgeCare team to craft the final copy. With that complete, we designed an application interface and shared the job listing via various channels, reaching over 10,000 job seekers. We also wrote marketing content for the BridgeCare team to make sharing the role through their own networks easy & painless.
4. Candidate Screening
The next step was to take what we learned through the role discovery process and create a customized scorecard to assess each candidate based on the criteria that were most important to BridgeCare. This served a dual purpose. By standardizing the process, we leveled the playing field for all candidates, and by providing BridgeCare with our scorecard assessments, we helped them make efficient evaluations of each candidate’s qualifications. We also mitigated bias by hiding each applicant’s identifying information during the initial screening process. We then provided BridgeCare with our assessment results and recommended a shortlist of candidates who were the best matches for the role. While our goal was to make it easier for BridgeCare leadership to select candidates to interview, we also built transparency into the process by providing them with access to every application and resume so they could review in detail at their discretion.
5. Interview Process
Conducting an interview when you’re new to hiring, or do it infrequently, can be a very stressful experience. We know it’s not just the job seeker who can feel anxious during an interview, so we work with our clients to design a structured interview strategy that makes the process easier and more effective. We worked with the BridgeCare team to identify the primary attributes and traits desired for the position, then provided a list of questions designed to help assess each candidate. We then produced a comprehensive interview template with step-by-step guidelines. By standardizing the process and asking the same questions in the same order, we created a more equitable interview experience and allowed for helpful side-by-side comparisons between applicants.
6. Onboarding Experience
An effective hiring process doesn’t end once a candidate has accepted the offer. Onboarding is essential to helping a new hire feel welcome and prepared to do their job, and when done correctly, it’s highly effective at reducing quit rates during the first year of employment. In addition to introducing them to the team, it sets new hires up with the tools, resources and training they need to understand company norms and get comfortable with their new role and responsibilities. We worked with the BridgeCare team to create a customized onboarding manual that included a checklist of everything new hires would need and a timeline to ensure everything was in place on day one. It also included guidance on how to structure the first week and month of onboarding. Having a plan for supporting and integrating new employees helps to make the process easier for everyone and reduces turnover.
The Results
In less than 1 month, we helped a small startup that had never hired outside their network develop a robust process and receive over 70 applications for their first role.
How we measured success
Speed
BridgeCare was looking to fill the Customer Success Manager role as soon as possible so we focused on providing a quick turnaround and reviewed applicants on a rolling basis.
Volume
Our goal was to reach a large number of candidates to ensure BridgeCare had as many options as possible.
Quality
We designed the process to attract highly qualified candidates and committed to providing a list of at least ten strong matches.
3 days
Company profile & custom job description in less than 3 days
1 week
Initial conversation to posted job in less than 1 week
10,000
Shared with a curated audience of more than 10,000 people
50
More than 50 applications in the first 72 hours
25%
25% of applicants were highly skilled and qualified for an interview
17
17 candidates were excellent matches for the role
6 days
Initial shortlist of qualified candidates delivered within 6 days of posting the job
9 days
With our support, BridgeCare was prepared to start interviews just 9 days after the job was first posted
Handprint has been critical for our small, mission-driven, and quickly growing company.
Before we engaged with Handprint, the hiring process felt incredibly overwhelming. We knew there were so many talented, values-aligned people out there but we didn't know how to find them. Not only did Handprint help us source and screen really high-quality candidates very quickly, but they helped us represent our company in the ways that align with our values and stand out to the kind of candidates that we wanted to attract. With Handprint we saved tons of time and money, but most importantly, we found several perfectly matched candidates and we are thrilled with our newest team member! From beginning to end, Handprint was there to help us through every step of the process and exceeded all of our expectations.
Jamee Herbert
CEO & Founder of BridgeCare
Need help with your next hire?
We offer custom hiring solutions for companies of all sizes.