Northern New Jersey-based contract manufacturer iLABS, a specialist in personal care and skincare products, has fundamentally transformed its talent acquisition strategy, moving from a reactive, bottlenecked system to a streamlined, highly efficient operation powered by the Workable applicant tracking system (ATS). This strategic shift has not only delivered substantial recruiter efficiency, saving approximately five hours per week through automation, but has also enabled a lean HR team to manage a high volume of diverse roles, enhance candidate experience, and significantly reduce hiring costs, ultimately eliminating the need for a dedicated in-house recruiter. The company, which employs approximately 170 people across its affiliated entities, now boasts a recruitment function that is measurably faster, better organized, and more cost-effective, cementing a structural advantage in a competitive market.
A Deep Dive into iLABS: Innovation in Personal Care Manufacturing
iLABS stands as a prominent contract manufacturer at the forefront of the personal care and skincare industry. Located in Northern New Jersey, a region known for its robust industrial infrastructure and proximity to major metropolitan talent pools, iLABS specializes in developing and producing a wide array of products, including sophisticated cleansers, high-performance SPFs, and advanced moisturizers. The company is the largest entity within a cluster of affiliated businesses, collectively employing a workforce of approximately 170 individuals. This dynamic environment necessitates a broad and specialized talent acquisition strategy, as recruiting efforts span an unusually diverse range of disciplines. The roles iLABS seeks to fill include highly specialized positions such as compounders, chemists, and process engineers, crucial for their manufacturing operations, alongside quality assurance professionals, UI/UX designers, IT specialists, and finance talent. Often, these varied roles need to be filled simultaneously and across multiple entities, presenting a complex challenge for any HR department.
Leading these crucial talent acquisition efforts is Francesca Gonzalez, the HR Coordinator, who serves as the primary point of contact for all recruitment across the organization. She is supported by two HR colleagues who lend assistance during peak demand periods, underscoring the lean nature of the HR function within the company. iLABS’ partnership with Workable extends back approximately two years, a period that has seen a complete overhaul of their hiring processes and a significant uplift in operational performance.
The Pre-Workable Era: A Landscape of Inefficiency and Missed Opportunities
Before the integration of Workable, iLABS’ talent acquisition efforts were characterized by significant inefficiencies and strategic limitations. The company’s approach relied heavily on a singular dedicated in-house recruiter to manage the entirety of its talent needs. This structure, while seemingly straightforward, proved to be a critical bottleneck. Recruitment was largely reactive, slow, and entirely dependent on the capacity and singular efforts of one individual, operating without the benefit of a robust, supporting technological platform.
A notable challenge arose when company leadership attempted to modernize the function through the implementation of Greenhouse, another prominent applicant tracking system. This initiative, rather than providing a solution, consumed nearly the full length of the software contract – a period typically spanning a year or more – before the system was even fully operational. By the time Greenhouse was ready for use, its contract had already expired, rendering the entire effort futile and costly. This prolonged, unsuccessful implementation not only wasted valuable resources but also delayed critical improvements to the company’s hiring velocity.
Further compounding these challenges was iLABS’ policy of not supplementing its talent pipeline with outside agencies. This decision placed the entire burden of hiring on the shoulders of the single in-house recruiter, who lacked both the advanced tools and the channel diversity necessary to keep pace with the demands of a growing manufacturing operation. The inherent limitations of this model meant that the company struggled to fill critical roles promptly, leading to potential delays in product development, manufacturing scale-up, and overall business growth. As Francesca Gonzalez observed, "We had an in-house recruiter and we weren’t utilizing outside agencies either. It was mostly just on this one person, which made things lag a little bit instead of being as fast as we would hope, especially in our industry." This sentiment highlighted the urgent need for a more agile and efficient talent acquisition framework capable of supporting iLABS’ strategic objectives in a highly competitive market.
The Strategic Pivot: Identifying and Embracing Workable
Following the dissatisfying and ultimately fruitless attempt to implement Greenhouse, iLABS leadership recognized the critical need for a talent acquisition platform that could meet specific, non-negotiable criteria. The ideal solution had to be user-friendly enough for a lean HR team to operate without extensive, time-consuming training. It also needed the versatility to manage a wide array of roles, from entry-level manufacturing positions to highly specialized scientific and technical roles, across multiple distinct corporate entities. Crucially, the platform had to facilitate a rapid and responsive hiring process to keep pace with the demands of the fast-moving personal care industry.
Workable emerged as the clear frontrunner, effectively meeting all three of these essential criteria. Its intuitive design promised quick adoption, its robust features offered the necessary flexibility for diverse recruitment needs, and its automation capabilities guaranteed an acceleration of the hiring timeline. Two years into their partnership, Workable has not only delivered on these promises but has exceeded expectations. The same lean HR team that once struggled with a single recruiter and no supporting platform is now efficiently managing a significantly higher volume of roles, a greater number of candidates, and a more complex recruitment landscape than the previous structure could ever support. Moreover, this enhanced capacity and efficiency have been achieved at a fraction of the cost previously incurred, largely due to the elimination of the dedicated in-house recruiter position—a testament to Workable’s transformative impact.
Transforming Talent Acquisition: The Workable Impact on iLABS
The integration of Workable has ushered in a new era of efficiency and effectiveness for iLABS’ talent acquisition function, fundamentally reshaping how the company identifies, attracts, and secures top talent.
1. Unprecedented Recruiter Efficiency and Enhanced Hiring Capacity:
Francesca Gonzalez, as the sole HR Coordinator primarily responsible for recruitment, now single-handedly manages the full recruiting lifecycle for iLABS and its affiliated companies. At peak capacity, she has adeptly managed eight concurrent open roles, spanning the full spectrum from entry-level manufacturing positions to highly senior technical searches. Remarkably, she describes this substantial workload not as overwhelming, but as manageable, a stark contrast to the pre-Workable era.
The cornerstone of this newfound capacity lies in Workable’s ability to intelligently distribute and automate the myriad coordination tasks that would otherwise consume Gonzalez’s time. Once a role has navigated the internal approval process, it seamlessly goes live on Workable. Gonzalez then efficiently onboards the relevant hiring manager with a brief, tailored orientation that respects their schedule and preferred level of involvement. The platform’s flexibility is key here: some managers engage daily, meticulously reviewing candidates and providing real-time comments, while others prefer to check in periodically on Gonzalez’s consolidated notes. Workable gracefully accommodates both styles, eliminating the need for manual, time-consuming adaptation on Gonzalez’s part. This adaptability fosters greater collaboration and ensures that all stakeholders remain aligned without adding administrative burden. As Gonzalez enthusiastically affirms, "Workable makes my life more streamlined… it is amazing, especially when I’m juggling so many roles at a time." This operational fluidity translates directly into enhanced productivity for the entire HR team.
2. Significant Time Savings Through Advanced Automation:
Recruiting constitutes approximately 70 percent of Francesca Gonzalez’s working day, making efficiency gains in this area profoundly impactful. Workable’s automation features have delivered substantial, not marginal, improvements. Gonzalez estimates that the platform saves her approximately five hours per week. This valuable time is recovered from tasks that previously demanded considerable manual effort, including drafting and sending repetitive emails, copying and customizing templates for various communications, diligently tracking down responses from busy hiring managers, and laboriously re-entering candidate information across disparate systems.
The automation workflows she relies on most are instrumental to these savings. These include stage-based email triggers that ensure timely communication, self-scheduling links that sync directly with her calendar to eliminate back-and-forth coordination, and a sophisticated rejection notification workflow that she personally configured. This bespoke workflow ensures that every applicant receives a timely and professional response at every stage of the pipeline, a critical enhancement to candidate experience. "I love the automation features. I can just send the email right away. My availability is already set. I don’t have to waste time managing my schedule. It links directly to my calendar," Gonzalez highlights, underscoring the profound impact of these streamlined processes on her daily workflow. Annually, these 250 hours saved (5 hours/week x 50 weeks) represent not just a significant cost reduction in terms of labor but also allow Gonzalez to dedicate more time to strategic initiatives and direct candidate engagement, further elevating the quality of iLABS’ talent acquisition efforts.
3. Expanded Application Reach and Strategic Sourcing:
Workable’s robust distribution capabilities have dramatically broadened iLABS’ applicant reach. For general roles, such as a recent Quality Assurance Supervisor position, the platform’s multi-board distribution strategy delivered an impressive volume of over 300 applicants, ensuring a diverse and ample pool of candidates. Conversely, for more specialized positions, such as a food scientist with a nutraceutical background, the platform intelligently surfaces a highly targeted pool of qualified individuals. In both scenarios, Gonzalez leverages Workable’s powerful filtering tools and automatic disqualification questions to efficiently reduce the manual review of unqualified applications. This is particularly crucial for an on-site company like iLABS, which often receives applications from candidates residing well outside its immediate geographical region, allowing for swift identification of viable local talent.
For senior-level searches that necessitate external agency support, Gonzalez employs an ingenious strategy within Workable: she creates a duplicate job posting, one public-facing and one internal. This allows her to seamlessly consolidate agency submissions with direct applications into a single, unified system, providing a comprehensive overview of all potential candidates. This integrated approach proved highly effective in a recent senior product manager search, which was successfully filled within a remarkable two months, demonstrating competitive placement speed even for specialized and hard-to-fill positions. This dual strategy ensures that iLABS maximizes its sourcing channels while maintaining centralized control and visibility over the entire recruitment process.
4. Seamless Background Check Integration:
Among all the features Workable offers, the background check integration stands out as Francesca Gonzalez’s absolute favorite. The ability to initiate checks, monitor their status in real-time, and download comprehensive results directly into a candidate’s confidential profile within Workable eliminates the need for an entirely separate platform. For a coordinator managing multiple active pipelines simultaneously, removing this constant context-switching between different systems compounds into significant time savings over the course of a week. This integrated approach not only enhances efficiency but also improves data security and compliance by centralizing sensitive candidate information. "Requesting background checks through Workable is literally my favorite thing. I love that it goes straight to their profile. I love not having to have another website and another login. It saves me so much time," Gonzalez affirms, highlighting the profound impact of this streamlined process on her daily workload and the overall speed of the hiring process.
5. Elevated Candidate Experience:
Francesca Gonzalez’s own experience as an applicant to iLABS, applying through Workable, provided a foundational insight into the platform’s user-friendliness. She vividly recalls the ease of self-scheduling her phone screen without any tedious back-and-forth coordination. This positive personal experience directly informed how she meticulously built out the candidate-facing side of iLABS’ recruitment process.
Today, a cornerstone of iLABS’ commitment to a superior candidate experience is the assurance that every applicant, regardless of outcome, receives timely and professional communication. Gonzalez personally configured and activated an automated rejection notification workflow, ensuring that any applicant who does not advance in the process receives an email. Prior to Workable, such consistent communication was often lacking. Now, it happens at every stage of the pipeline, without exception. "I was able to implement the automation workflow so that any time a candidate got rejected at any stage, they got that email notification pushed out. At least they know. ‘Am I still considered? Am I not?’ That communication is actually happening now," Gonzalez explains. This commitment to transparent and timely feedback not only fosters goodwill among applicants but also reinforces iLABS’ reputation as a considerate and professional employer, potentially cultivating a positive talent pipeline for future opportunities.
6. Universal Hiring Manager Adoption and Standardized Workflows:
The hiring manager cohort at iLABS is notably diverse, ranging from first-time directors to seasoned executives in their sixties. Despite this broad spectrum of technological familiarity, adoption of Workable across the organization has been remarkably consistent and enthusiastic. The platform’s intuitive design requires minimal instruction, a critical factor that means Gonzalez spends considerably less time explaining how to use the tool and more time effectively managing the actual recruitment process.
The result of this widespread adoption is the establishment of a shared organizational standard for talent acquisition. Rather than repeatedly re-explaining workflows each time a new role opens, the entire team now operates from a common baseline with clearly established expectations on both sides. This consistency reduces friction, improves collaboration, and ensures a smoother, more predictable hiring process for everyone involved. "I am fairly confident it’s probably one of the best ATS systems out there. I speak so highly of it every time I talk to my hiring managers," Gonzalez asserts, underscoring the platform’s effectiveness and user satisfaction.
Broader Business Impact and Strategic Implications
Two years into their strategic partnership with Workable, iLABS has successfully cultivated a recruitment function that is demonstrably faster, significantly better organized, and profoundly more cost-effective than anything the company’s previous structure could ever support. The transformation is evident across multiple key performance indicators: a single HR coordinator, Francesca Gonzalez, now efficiently manages up to eight open roles concurrently, recovers approximately five hours per week through intelligent automation, and consistently delivers a candidate experience that rivals organizations with substantially larger recruiting teams.
However, the most significant return on investment, as assessed by Gonzalez herself, lies in the complete elimination of the dedicated in-house recruiter position. The substantial workload previously handled by this role has been seamlessly absorbed by the existing lean HR team, robustly supported by Workable, without any discernible decline in output, quality, or speed. This strategic consolidation represents not merely an operational improvement but a profound structural advantage for iLABS. For a growing contract manufacturer like iLABS, which operates in a densely populated regional market and fiercely competes for highly specialized talent across diverse scientific, technical, and operational disciplines, this efficiency gain is paramount. It enables the company to allocate resources more strategically, invest further in its core business, and maintain a competitive edge in attracting and retaining the skilled workforce essential for continued innovation and growth in the dynamic personal care and skincare industry. Workable has thus become an indispensable strategic partner, empowering iLABS to build and sustain a high-performing team while optimizing its human capital investment.
