In a challenging and rapidly evolving healthcare talent landscape, QualDerm Partners, a prominent dermatology organization operating across 17 states and more than 60 facilities, has successfully transformed its recruitment operations, leveraging the Workable applicant tracking system (ATS) to achieve remarkable efficiency, scale, and strategic insight. The organization, which employs over 2,000 individuals and completes nearly 800 hires annually, faced significant hurdles in managing its complex, multi-location hiring needs before implementing the new platform. A dedicated team of six talent acquisition professionals now effectively navigates up to 150 open requisitions simultaneously, demonstrating a paradigm shift in how high-volume recruitment can be managed in a demanding sector.
Navigating the Complexities of Healthcare Talent Acquisition
QualDerm Partners occupies a unique and demanding position within the healthcare industry, requiring a robust talent acquisition strategy to staff a diverse array of roles, from highly specialized surgeons and physician assistants to medical assistants, front office personnel, and critical call center teams. The sheer geographical spread across 17 states and more than 60 distinct facilities amplifies the logistical complexities of recruitment. Each location often presents its own unique talent pool dynamics, regulatory nuances, and operational requirements, demanding a highly adaptable and efficient system.
The organization’s journey to optimize its talent acquisition began against a backdrop of significant organizational growth, including a pivotal merger. This period of expansion, while strategically beneficial, exposed the critical limitations of their existing recruitment infrastructure. Prior to Workable, QualDerm utilized Paylocity as its primary applicant tracking system. This platform, while serving some basic functions, proved inadequate for the scale and sophistication required by QualDerm’s evolving needs. Key deficiencies included minimal data and analytics capabilities, a cumbersome user experience, and a general lack of agility in a market that was rapidly adopting more advanced technological solutions.
Iesha Vann, Manager of Talent Acquisition, who oversees all non-provider recruitment, highlighted the critical data vacuum. "The metrics that matter most in high-volume healthcare recruiting â time to fill, time to hire, candidate pipeline health â were either unavailable or impossible to track reliably," Vann stated. This absence of verifiable data had profound operational and financial consequences. In a healthcare environment, particularly in specialized fields like dermatology, every day a provider chair remains unfilled translates directly into lost revenue. Without accurate data to quantify these costs, the talent acquisition team lacked the necessary leverage to advocate for strategic investments in recruitment improvements. The previous system made it virtually impossible to establish baselines, track performance, or demonstrate the return on investment of recruitment efforts to leadership.
A Strategic Return to a Proven Platform
The decision to transition to Workable was not made in isolation; it was informed by prior positive experiences within parts of the merged organization. Members of the QualDerm team had utilized Workable before the merger and understood the capabilities of a purpose-built ATS. This familiarity, coupled with the glaring deficiencies of the current system, made the choice straightforward. The return to Workable was grounded not just in familiarity but also in the immediate, stark contrast it offered. Where the prior system was perceived as static and limited, Workable presented itself as an actively evolving platform, genuinely user-friendly, and specifically engineered to support the kind of high-volume, multi-location hiring that QualDerm critically required.
Achieving Unprecedented Scale and Efficiency
One of the most immediate and profound impacts of Workable was its ability to manage QualDermâs significant operational demands. With the talent acquisition team frequently handling up to 150 active requisitions at any given time, often with roles opening in clusters due to facility expansion or staff turnover, a robust system capable of absorbing this volume without generating chaos was paramount. Workableâs advanced requisition management and hiring plan functionalities provided the necessary structure. This allowed Vannâs team to systematically stack and prioritize openings, ensuring that high-urgency roles received immediate attention while maintaining organization and visibility across the broader recruitment pipeline.
The platform’s multi-location visibility emerged as a game-changer. Recruiters could now gain a comprehensive overview of all open positions across QualDermâs 17 states from a single, unified interface â a capability previously unimaginable. This centralized view drastically reduced the administrative burden and eliminated the need for fragmented, manual tracking systems, thereby enhancing coordination and strategic deployment of recruitment resources.
Furthermore, the integration of AI screening tools became an indispensable asset for managing inbound application volume. Instead of recruiters manually sifting through hundreds of applications across dozens of diverse roles, the AI capabilities allowed for rapid identification and prioritization of the strongest candidates. This innovation was crucial in maintaining the quality of hires without compromising the speed required in a competitive talent market, particularly for high-turnover positions.
Transformative Metrics: A Data-Driven Approach to Talent Acquisition
Perhaps the most significant transformation observed at QualDerm Partners was the establishment of reliable, actionable recruitment metrics. Prior to Workable, the organization lacked any credible method to measure "time to fill" â a fundamental metric in healthcare where provider availability directly correlates with revenue generation and patient access. The absence of this data meant QualDerm was operating without a critical financial and operational benchmark.
Today, QualDermâs team proudly tracks an average time to fill of 32 days. This figure is not merely a statistic; it serves as a foundational baseline that now anchors their cost-per-vacancy analysis, providing leadership with a data-driven lens through which to evaluate and optimize recruitment performance. Compared to industry averages, where time to fill in healthcare can range from 40-60 days for general roles and significantly longer for specialized provider positions (often 90-180+ days), QualDerm’s 32-day average for its diverse roles is highly competitive and indicative of exceptional efficiency.
Iesha Vann underscored the importance of this new capability: âWe couldnât track time to fill in Paylocity. Now we have a yearly average of 32 days, and that number is important because we use it to keep cost per vacancy as low as possible.â This direct link between recruitment metrics and financial outcomes has elevated the talent acquisition function from a purely operational role to a strategic business partner. Leadership is now actively engaging with real-time hiring data, moving beyond secondhand summaries to directly inform organizational strategy and resource allocation. This newfound visibility fosters greater confidence in hiring decisions across all levels.
Video Interviews: A Catalyst for Unprecedented Time Savings
One of the clearest examples of Workableâs efficiency impact at QualDerm manifested through its video interview feature. The organization’s call center, characterized by its high-turnover rate, frequently experiences periods of elevated hiring demand. At one point, the team confronted more than 10 simultaneous openings for this critical role. Under traditional screening methods, this volume would have consumed an enormous amount of recruiter time for initial phone screenings and significantly protracted an already time-sensitive process.
By strategically activating Workableâs video interview feature for these high-volume roles, QualDerm revolutionized its initial screening process. Recruiters could send video screening requests, allowing candidates to record their responses asynchronously, at their convenience. Crucially, hiring managers could then review these recordings without the need for intricate scheduling coordination. The tangible result was a remarkable saving of 20 to 30 hours of recruiter time within a single 30-day period â a testament to the power of automated, flexible screening.
The success of this feature quickly led to its expansion beyond the call center. Senior leadership, including executives who previously had limited visibility into early-stage candidates, now actively participate in reviewing video screens. This expanded adoption not only streamlines the process further but also provides a broader organizational understanding of the candidate pool at earlier stages. The talent acquisition team is proactively identifying additional roles and workflows across the organization where video interviewing can be strategically applied throughout the year, cementing its place as a core recruitment tool. Vann noted, "Anyone can watch them now, including leaders. It opened up the process."
Enhancing the Candidate Journey through Modern Communication
In todayâs competitive market for both clinical and administrative talent, candidate responsiveness and engagement are paramount. QualDerm Partners recognized this and leveraged Workableâs modern communication tools to gain a competitive edge. The texting feature is now integrated throughout the entire hiring process, from initial outreach to scheduling confirmations and pre-start communications. The immediacy and convenience of text-based communication have demonstrably reduced candidate drop-off rates and maintained a high level of engagement at every stage of the recruitment funnel. This proactive communication strategy ensures candidates feel valued and informed, a critical factor in attracting and retaining top talent.
Similarly, the self-scheduling feature has significantly alleviated the administrative burden on the recruiting team. Instead of manually coordinating interview calendars across over 60 facilities, candidates can now directly book into available slots that align with their schedules and the hiring teamâs availability. This eliminates tedious back-and-forth communication, drastically accelerating the time to interview and enhancing the overall candidate experience.
QualDerm also invested substantially in optimizing its careers page within Workable. By creating a polished, branded entry point for candidates, regardless of how they discovered the job posting, the organization ensures a consistent and professional first impression. This unified and positive candidate experience reinforces QualDermâs employer brand and contributes to attracting a higher caliber of applicants.
Compliance and Documentation: Integrating Regulatory Needs into Workflow
Healthcare hiring is inherently subject to stringent compliance requirements, which many general-purpose ATS platforms struggle to adequately support. Workableâs flexibility allowed QualDerm to seamlessly integrate critical documentation directly into its standard hiring workflows. This includes essential elements like job description acknowledgment forms, which fulfill regulatory requirements as an integral part of the process. These crucial documents are stored securely within Workable alongside all other candidate records, ensuring a complete, auditable, and compliant hiring file for every single hire. This automated approach significantly reduces the risk of non-compliance and streamlines administrative tasks, freeing up the TA team to focus on talent engagement.
The offer letter workflow has also been fully digitized and managed within the Workable platform. This streamlines the final stage of the hiring process, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and efficiency. Notably, the COO is among the senior leadership team members who have recently adopted this workflow, attesting to its user-friendliness and effectiveness.
Executive Adoption: A Testament to Strategic Success
Perhaps the most compelling indicator of Workableâs deep and successful integration at QualDerm Partners is the level of engagement from its executive leadership. The CEO, CHRO, and COO are not merely passive observers but active participants in the platform and its associated hiring workflows. This level of direct executive adoption is a powerful signal, reflecting both the platform’s intuitive usability and the elevated priority that hiring visibility and strategic talent acquisition have assumed within the organization.
For Iesha Vannâs talent acquisition team, this executive engagement translates into a shared operational environment where the data they produce is directly accessible and understood by leadership. This significantly reduces the friction typically associated with reporting cycles, fostering greater confidence in hiring decisions at every organizational level and solidifying the TA teamâs role as a strategic driver of organizational success.
Broader Impact and Implications
QualDerm Partnersâ experience with Workable offers a compelling case study for the broader healthcare industry. In an era marked by persistent talent shortages, increasing competition for skilled professionals, and complex regulatory environments, the ability to recruit at scale with efficiency and precision is no longer a luxury but a strategic imperative. The substantial reduction in time to fill, the significant time savings for recruiters, and the enhanced candidate experience directly contribute to QualDermâs operational stability, revenue generation, and overall competitive advantage. By establishing clear metrics and fostering executive-level engagement with talent data, QualDerm has not only optimized its recruitment process but also elevated the strategic importance of human capital within its organizational framework.
This transformation underscores the critical role that modern, specialized applicant tracking systems play in enabling healthcare organizations to meet their ambitious growth targets while maintaining high standards of patient care. For organizations managing high-volume, multi-location recruiting in a competitive talent market, Workable has demonstrably delivered the speed, visibility, compliance support, and candidate experience demanded by the field. QualDerm’s team of six manages 787 annual hires and up to 150 open requisitions concurrently, a feat that would have been insurmountable with their previous system. This achievement, executed with the confidence of a team empowered by robust infrastructure, positions QualDerm Partners as a leader in strategic talent acquisition within the healthcare sector.
