Managing the complex and geographically dispersed hiring needs of a large property management company presents significant operational challenges. For PeakMade Real Estate, a prominent firm operating across dozens of locations in the United States and Canada, the imperative to modernize its recruitment processes became critical for sustaining growth, enhancing team collaboration, and ensuring a consistent, positive experience for both candidates and hiring managers. The company’s strategic adoption of Workable, a leading applicant tracking system, has since revolutionized its talent acquisition strategy, delivering measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, managerial empowerment, and a remarkable surge in candidate flow.
PeakMade Real Estate, with its portfolio of approximately 100 properties and a workforce of around 950 associates, navigates a diverse landscape encompassing both student housing and multifamily markets. Its hiring demands span a broad spectrum of roles, from vital property operations and facilities teams to crucial corporate positions. A unique structural complexity for PeakMade is that each managed property often operates under its own ownership group, necessitating a robust and transparent hiring solution capable of aligning multiple stakeholders while maintaining a high standard for the candidate experience. This foundational need for speed, visibility, and consistency across its vast North American footprint drove the search for a comprehensive technological upgrade.
The Landscape of Property Management Hiring: A Pre-Workable Perspective
Before integrating Workable, PeakMade’s hiring ecosystem was characterized by a series of manual, time-intensive processes that created significant bottlenecks and inefficiencies. The traditional methods hindered visibility across teams, making coordinated efforts between various stakeholders—from property managers to corporate HR—an arduous task. A particularly acute challenge was the decentralized management of job postings, which required individual roles to be manually listed across numerous job boards. This not only consumed valuable time but also led to inconsistencies and missed opportunities for broader reach.
Molly Blazer, Systems Compliance Analyst at PeakMade Real Estate, underscored this specific pain point, stating, "Before Workable, we had to manually post our roles across multiple job sites instead of doing it all with a click of a button." This manual effort diverted critical resources and delayed the recruitment cycle, impacting the company’s ability to quickly fill essential roles. Furthermore, hiring managers often struggled with limited access to candidate information and lacked intuitive tools for effective collaboration, leading to disjointed communication and prolonged decision-making timelines. The absence of a streamlined system also compromised the candidate experience, as timely responses and transparent communication were difficult to maintain, potentially deterring promising applicants.
The property management sector, by its very nature, faces unique recruitment challenges. High turnover rates, particularly in frontline operational and leasing roles, demand a constant and efficient hiring pipeline. The geographical dispersion of properties means that local market conditions and talent pools vary significantly, requiring a flexible yet centralized approach. Moreover, attracting and retaining skilled professionals—from maintenance technicians to community managers—in a competitive labor market necessitates an agile and appealing recruitment process. PeakMade’s previous manual system was ill-equipped to handle these multifaceted pressures, creating a strategic disadvantage in talent acquisition.
A Strategic Pivot: Choosing a Future-Ready Hiring Platform
Recognizing these systemic limitations, PeakMade embarked on a thorough evaluation of applicant tracking systems (ATS), prioritizing solutions that offered ease of use, seamless integration with existing tools, and the innovative edge of AI-powered efficiencies. The selection criteria were not merely about replacing an old system but about investing in a future-focused platform that could scale with the company’s ambitious growth trajectory. Key considerations included the ability to centralize data, automate repetitive tasks, and provide actionable insights.
Workable distinguished itself early in the evaluation process, largely due to its commitment to transparency and user experience, even during the demo phase. "We loved that Workable offered a demo system where we could test what it would actually be like to use the platform," Blazer noted. This hands-on experience provided PeakMade with tangible confidence in the system’s practical application and intuitive design. Beyond immediate usability, Workable’s continuous product evolution was a significant draw. Blazer added, "During the demo process, we could already see that Workable was making improvements in real time. That gave us confidence that the platform is forward-thinking and will grow with us." This perception of a dynamic, evolving platform aligned perfectly with PeakMade’s long-term vision for scaling its operations across North America. The inclusion of an AI assistant for resume screening and quick query resolution further solidified Workable’s appeal, promising enhanced efficiency from the outset.
Seamless Implementation and Rapid Organizational Adoption
The transition to Workable proved to be remarkably smooth, defying the often-complex challenges associated with integrating new enterprise-level software across a distributed organization. The platform’s inherent user-friendliness, coupled with its robust suite of built-in resources and an intuitive AI assistant, significantly minimized the need for extensive, formal training sessions. This "little to no training needed" approach was a critical factor for PeakMade, enabling hiring managers to quickly acclimate to the new system and begin reviewing candidates almost immediately.
For an organization with properties spread across nearly 30 U.S. states and Canada, the ease of adoption was paramount. It ensured that the implementation did not disrupt ongoing operations and that local teams could rapidly leverage the new tools without a steep learning curve. This swift integration meant that PeakMade could begin realizing the benefits of streamlined hiring workflows much faster, accelerating its talent acquisition efforts across its diverse portfolio.
Empowering Hiring Managers: A New Era of Efficiency and Collaboration
With Workable fully integrated, PeakMade’s hiring managers now operate within a vastly improved ecosystem. The platform provides a centralized, comprehensive view of all candidates and communications throughout the entire hiring process, eliminating the previous fragmentation and lack of transparency. This unified dashboard allows managers to track candidate progress, review feedback, and engage with applicants from a single, intuitive interface.
A standout feature that has significantly boosted efficiency is Workable’s seamless integration with Outlook. This functionality streamlines interview scheduling, drastically reducing the time and effort previously spent on back-and-forth coordination. As Blazer highlighted, "Hiring managers can engage with candidates easily through the Outlook integrations and schedule interviews quickly without all the back and forth." This automation not only saves time but also minimizes scheduling errors and improves the overall professionalism of the recruitment process. Furthermore, managers can now access a complete history of all communications with candidates, fostering better collaboration among hiring teams and ensuring a consistent messaging strategy. This newfound clarity and accessibility have transformed the hiring process from a disjointed effort into a cohesive, collaborative endeavor.
Elevating the Candidate Experience: A Competitive Edge
In today’s competitive talent market, a positive candidate experience is not just a nicety; it’s a strategic imperative that significantly influences an organization’s employer brand and its ability to attract top talent. PeakMade recognized this and prioritized a hiring solution that could deliver a faster, more modern, and more engaging applicant journey. Workable’s streamlined application flow and automated communication capabilities have been instrumental in achieving this goal.
The company aimed to create an application process that was "quick and easy," allowing candidates to effortlessly submit their resumes and connect with job opportunities that genuinely matched their skills and interests. This approach not only respects the applicant’s time but also enhances PeakMade’s appeal as a forward-thinking employer. The initial feedback from hiring managers regarding the improved candidate experience has been overwhelmingly positive. "Our hiring managers say it’s a huge upgrade from what we were doing before," Blazer reported. "They love the automation and AI capabilities that help them quickly find fitting candidates." This sentiment reflects a significant shift from a cumbersome, manual system to an intuitive, tech-enabled process that benefits all parties involved. By reducing barriers and providing timely, consistent communication, PeakMade is better positioned to attract and secure the best talent in the market.
Data-Driven Recruitment: Informing Better Decisions
One of the most profound impacts of Workable’s implementation has been the democratization of hiring data. Previously, insights into job posting performance or candidate pipeline status were often siloed within HR departments, requiring manual requests and reports. Now, Workable’s comprehensive dashboards and reporting tools provide hiring managers with direct, real-time access to critical metrics.
"Managers now have access to the dashboards and reporting so they can dive deeper into how their job posts are performing and see where candidates are in the process," Blazer explained. This transparency empowers managers to identify bottlenecks, optimize their recruitment strategies, and understand the effectiveness of different job boards and sourcing channels. They can proactively assess which roles are moving efficiently through the pipeline and where additional support or adjustments might be needed. This shift from reactive, HR-dependent reporting to proactive, self-service data access represents a significant leap forward in PeakMade’s ability to make informed, data-backed hiring decisions, ultimately leading to more efficient and effective talent acquisition.
Quantifiable Success: A Remarkable Surge in Candidate Flow
The most immediate and striking outcome of PeakMade’s transition to Workable has been a dramatic increase in candidate volume. Before the implementation, the company averaged approximately 50 applicants per job posting. Since adopting Workable, this number has soared to an impressive 140 applicants per role. This nearly threefold increase provides PeakMade’s hiring managers with a significantly larger and more diverse pool of candidates from which to choose.
This surge in candidate engagement has several critical implications. A broader talent pool enhances the likelihood of finding candidates with the precise skills and cultural fit required for each role. It also offers opportunities to foster greater diversity within the workforce, aligning with modern organizational values. Furthermore, an increased volume of qualified applicants can contribute to a reduction in time-to-hire, as managers have more options available more quickly, enabling PeakMade to fill critical positions faster and maintain optimal staffing levels across its extensive property portfolio. In an industry where labor shortages can significantly impact operational efficiency and resident satisfaction, this improvement in candidate flow provides PeakMade with a substantial competitive advantage.
Empowering People Operations: Doing More with Less
For PeakMade’s People Operations team, the adoption of Workable has been transformative. In a rapidly expanding organization with a distributed workforce, technology plays a pivotal role in enabling a relatively small central team to support hiring managers across dozens of properties effectively. Workable’s automation and AI tools have allowed the People Operations team to scale its impact without a proportional increase in workload.
"As a people operations team, we want to make sure we’re supporting our hiring managers," Blazer stated. "With Workable’s AI capabilities, they can handle higher candidate volume, and it frees up our time to focus on what matters most for our people." This strategic shift allows the People Operations team to move away from transactional, administrative tasks and dedicate more resources to higher-value initiatives such such as talent development, employee engagement, and strategic workforce planning. By automating the routine aspects of recruitment, Workable has empowered the HR function to become a more strategic partner in PeakMade’s overall business objectives, enhancing the employee experience from onboarding through career progression.
A Collaborative Partnership for Enduring Success
Beyond the tangible benefits of the Workable platform itself, PeakMade deeply valued the collaborative experience of working with the Workable team throughout the entire evaluation and onboarding process. From the initial demonstrations to the intricacies of implementation and ongoing support, PeakMade felt a strong sense of partnership and shared commitment to success.
"We had a lot of faith in the product because of the experience with Workable’s team from demo to implementation and even after implementation," Blazer remarked. This responsiveness and a clear, shared focus on collaboratively solving PeakMade’s specific hiring challenges reinforced the conviction that they had chosen not just a software vendor, but a true strategic partner. "It really makes a difference when you feel like people care about what you care about and want to solve the problem together," she added, emphasizing the human element that underpinned the successful technological transition. This level of partnership is often critical for the long-term success of any enterprise software adoption, ensuring ongoing support, feature enhancements, and alignment with evolving business needs.
Looking Ahead: Scaling with Confidence
As PeakMade Real Estate continues to expand its property portfolio across North America, the company is confident that it has selected a platform that will evolve in lockstep with its growth. The fundamental problem of "ease of use" has been decisively addressed, enabling quick adoption and efficient operation across its diverse organizational structure.
"Workable solved our biggest problem: ease of use. People can jump right into the system and find the candidates they need much faster," Blazer concluded. With its hiring processes now centralized, significantly automated, and intelligently supported by AI capabilities, PeakMade is exceptionally well-positioned to continue scaling its workforce with agility and precision. This strategic investment in modern recruitment technology not only optimizes operational efficiency but also ensures a consistently superior experience for both job applicants and the internal hiring teams, cementing PeakMade’s reputation as an attractive employer in the dynamic real estate sector. The partnership with Workable represents a significant milestone in PeakMade’s journey towards building a resilient, high-performing workforce ready to meet the demands of future expansion.
