The challenge
The California State University (CSU) is one of the largest universities in the United States. With 23 campuses and 7 off-campus centers spanning over 800 miles, they have 477,000 students, and over 56,000 faculty and staff members, all operating under a decentraliseddecentralized model. Each campus has its own HR office, which operates independently with limited oversight from the central HR team. This has led to competition among campuses — as they each vie for the same pool of talent.
A decentraliseddecentralized approach makes it difficult for CSU to streamline recruitment efforts, attract the best talent and maintain a consistent candidate experience across the entire university system. CSU needed a way to tap into the benefits of a centralisedcentralized recruitment process, while respecting the autonomy and unique cultures of each campus.
Hiring in Higher Education is more competitive than ever. PageUp data reveals that in the US, there has been a 34% increase in advertised roles, but an 8% drop in applications submitted. To compete in this challenging market, CSU recognisedrecognized the need to:
- Eliminate competition for top talent between its campuses
- Empower each campus to remain autonomous and showcase their unique cultures while presenting a united brand to candidates
- Streamline recruitment and maintain a consistent, positive candidate experience across the CSU brand
The focus
To get started, CSU’s central HR team interviewed all 23 campus HR departments, to get a deep understanding of the hiring challenges they each faced. Every CSU campus has its own culture, and the proposed move to centralisecentralize hiring wasn’t intended to take away from this. Rather, it was about giving each campus the tools needed to attract talent and provide access to centralisedcentralized talent pools, while giving candidates a consistent experience.
During this audit, the team found that campus police were a department hit hardest with hiring challenges. When recruiting university police officers, hiring managers often struggled to source more than one qualified applicant. This struggle was the same regardless of location, with roles going unfilled across regional and metropolitan campuses.
The team identified a large gap in awareness. CSU was competing for talent against local police and sheriff’s departments —and many jobseekers didn’t realiserealize that roles like this existed at CSU.
The team decided to use this as an opportunity to trial a shift towards centralisedcentralized recruitment. If there were many qualified candidates for Campus A, but only one was hired, could the pool of qualified applicants be ‘shared’ across Campuses B, C, and so on? Using the campus police department as the pilot, the team started the search for a sophisticated recruitment marketing solution.
The solution
CSU paired PageUp Recruitment Marketing with their existing PageUp ATS, to attract the best talent the market had to offer. During the campus police department trial, the team were able to share talent pipelines across campuses to drive better hiring outcomes.
In the pilot, their centralisedcentralized candidate-centric approach has unified its 23 campuses, while giving each campus the power to showcase a unique employer brand— firmly cementing The California State University as an employer of choice for sworn officers.
In embracing a shared-services approach, all 23 campuses are set to benefit from a pipeline of engaged, qualified candidates. Following a successful pilot program, CSU plan to roll out PageUp Recruitment Marketing further, paired with their PageUp ATS to:
- CentraliseCentralize core recruitment functions like talent pipelines and employer branding
- Empower each campus to showcase their unique EVPs, cultures and day-in-the-life
- StandardiseStandardize position descriptions and applications, improving candidate experience
- Improve time-to-hire, and reduce competition between campuses, with candidates able to rank their preferred campuses
- Create a strong overarching employer brand
PageUp helps the world’s leading institutions recruit, develop and retain great teams. Take a look at hiring solutions built with higher education teams in mind.
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