QualDerm Partners, a prominent dermatology organization spanning 17 states and operating over 60 facilities, has successfully transformed its intricate talent acquisition landscape by implementing Workable, an advanced applicant tracking system. The strategic shift has enabled the company to navigate the demanding healthcare recruitment market, completing 787 hires in a single year with a lean team of six, significantly reducing time-to-fill, and establishing critical data baselines for the first time. This transition marks a pivotal moment for QualDerm, moving its recruitment function from a reactive, operational role to a data-driven, strategic contributor to the organization’s overall success and growth.
QualDerm Partners: Navigating the Complexities of Healthcare Talent Acquisition
Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, QualDerm Partners stands as a leading force in the dermatology sector, managing a vast network of practices that collectively serve a broad patient base across the United States. With a workforce exceeding 2,000 employees, the organization’s growth trajectory necessitates a robust and agile recruitment strategy. The unique challenges inherent in healthcare recruitment are particularly pronounced for QualDerm, which must simultaneously recruit for highly specialized provider roles—such as surgeons and physician assistants—alongside high-volume administrative and support positions, including medical assistants, front office staff, and call center teams. Each category of role presents distinct sourcing, screening, and compliance requirements, demanding a sophisticated and adaptable recruitment platform.
Overseeing this complex and high-stakes recruitment operation for all non-provider roles is Iesha Vann, the Manager of Talent Acquisition. Her team of six is tasked with managing the entire hiring workflow across the organization’s extensive footprint. At any given time, this relatively small team might be concurrently handling as many as 150 open requisitions. The sheer volume and geographic dispersion of these roles underscore the critical importance of the technology underpinning their talent acquisition efforts. Without an efficient, integrated, and data-rich system, managing such an operation would be virtually impossible, leading to delays, increased costs, and potential impact on patient care delivery due to staffing shortages.
The Pre-Workable Landscape: Post-Merger Hurdles and Data Deficiencies
Prior to their adoption of Workable, QualDerm Partners faced significant operational hurdles, largely stemming from the limitations of their previous applicant tracking system (ATS), Paylocity. The organization’s journey to Workable was precipitated by a period of substantial corporate growth, including mergers and acquisitions, which often expose the inadequacies of legacy systems. While Paylocity served as their ATS, it quickly became apparent that the platform was not equipped to support the scale and strategic demands of QualDerm’s expanding recruitment needs.
The primary challenges with their former system were multi-faceted. Crucially, Paylocity offered minimal data and analytics capabilities. In a high-volume, competitive sector like healthcare, metrics such as "time to fill," "time to hire," and "candidate pipeline health" are not merely operational statistics; they are direct indicators of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and revenue generation potential. Without reliable access to these metrics, QualDerm’s talent acquisition team operated in the dark, unable to quantify the true cost of open positions or strategically identify areas for improvement. This data vacuum had tangible operational consequences. For instance, an unfilled provider chair in a dermatology practice represents a direct and immediate loss of potential revenue. Without the ability to track time to fill, the team lacked the crucial data point needed to articulate this financial impact to leadership or to justify investments in more aggressive recruitment strategies.
Furthermore, the user experience of the previous platform was described as difficult, contributing to inefficiencies and frustration among recruiters. In a fast-evolving talent market, a static and cumbersome product can severely impede a team’s ability to adapt and compete. The absence of modern features and a responsive interface meant that recruiters spent more time on manual tasks and administrative overhead, diverting valuable resources from proactive candidate engagement and strategic sourcing.
The team, including Iesha Vann, had previous experience with Workable before the merger. This prior positive experience meant they were acutely aware of the capabilities and advantages a well-designed ATS could offer. When the opportunity arose to transition to a new system, the decision to return to Workable was not just logical but, in many ways, an imperative for the organization’s continued growth and operational excellence. The contrast between the systems was stark, highlighting Workable’s evolving features, usability, and inherent suitability for high-volume, multi-location hiring.
The Strategic Shift: Why Workable Was the Definitive Solution
QualDerm’s decision to re-embrace Workable was rooted in a combination of proven familiarity and the clear, immediate contrast it offered against their previous system. Where their prior ATS felt constrained and outdated, Workable presented itself as a dynamic, user-friendly platform specifically engineered to support the rigorous demands of QualDerm’s recruitment model. This return was less about a simple software upgrade and more about adopting a strategic partner capable of evolving with the organization’s needs.
The core reasons for selecting Workable were deeply aligned with QualDerm’s operational imperatives:
- Active Evolution: The healthcare talent landscape is constantly shifting, requiring an ATS that is not static but actively developed and updated with new features and functionalities. Workable’s commitment to continuous improvement resonated with QualDerm’s forward-looking approach.
- Genuine Usability: A difficult user experience directly impacts recruiter productivity and morale. Workable’s intuitive interface promised to reduce training time, minimize errors, and empower the recruiting team to focus on talent engagement rather than system navigation.
- Built for Scale: Critically, Workable’s architecture was designed to manage high-volume, multi-location hiring. This was a non-negotiable requirement for QualDerm, which operates across numerous facilities in different states and regularly manages a large pipeline of diverse roles.
The immediate impact of Workable’s implementation was palpable. The platform’s capabilities addressed long-standing pain points, allowing QualDerm to streamline operations, gain unprecedented visibility into their hiring processes, and, most importantly, begin leveraging data to make informed, strategic decisions.
Transforming Recruitment Operations: Managing Scale and Volume with Precision
The operational demands on QualDerm’s recruiting team are immense, with up to 150 open requisitions active at any given moment. This volume is often compounded by roles opening in clusters, whether due to facility expansion, new service lines, or natural staff turnover. Managing such a dynamic and high-stakes pipeline without a robust system would inevitably lead to disorganization and missed opportunities. Workable’s comprehensive suite of tools provided the necessary infrastructure to bring order and efficiency to this complex environment.
- Systematic Requisition Management: Workable’s requisition management and hiring plan functionalities are central to QualDerm’s ability to cope with high volume. These features allow Iesha Vann’s team to systematically stack, prioritize, and track openings. This ensures that critical, high-urgency roles, particularly provider positions that directly impact revenue, receive immediate and focused attention, while the broader candidate pipeline remains organized and manageable. The ability to categorize and prioritize roles is essential for a team of six managing hundreds of annual hires.
- Multi-Location Visibility: A significant limitation of their previous system was the lack of a unified view across all 17 states. Workable remedied this by offering multi-location visibility, enabling a recruiter to see the complete hiring picture from a single dashboard. This consolidated view eliminates the need for disparate spreadsheets or fragmented communication, fostering greater collaboration and consistency across the dispersed operations. It allows for resource allocation optimization, identifying where recruitment efforts are most needed or where bottlenecks might be forming.
- AI Screening for Enhanced Efficiency: To manage the substantial inbound application volume for dozens of open roles, QualDerm has integrated Workable’s AI screening tools into their core workflow. Instead of manually sifting through countless applications, which is time-consuming and prone to human bias and fatigue, recruiters can now leverage AI to quickly identify and prioritize the strongest candidates. This technology helps maintain a high standard of candidate quality without sacrificing the speed essential in a competitive market. The AI acts as a crucial first filter, allowing recruiters to focus their expertise on engaging with the most promising applicants.
These functionalities collectively empower QualDerm’s recruiting team to handle massive scale, ensure strategic focus, and maintain high standards of quality and efficiency, transforming what was once a chaotic process into a streamlined and strategic operation.
Data-Driven Decisions: Quantifying Success with Key Metrics
One of the most profound impacts of Workable at QualDerm has been the introduction of reliable, actionable data. Before Workable, the organization lacked a dependable method to measure "time to fill," a critical metric in healthcare where provider availability directly correlates with revenue generation. The absence of this data point meant that the financial implications of vacancies were often anecdotal or difficult to quantify, hindering strategic planning and resource allocation.
Today, QualDerm 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. By understanding the average duration an open position remains unfilled, leadership can accurately quantify the financial impact of each vacancy and make data-driven decisions regarding recruitment investments. This shift from guesswork to precise measurement represents a significant upgrade in operational intelligence.
Iesha Vann underscores the importance of this metric: "We couldn’t 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." This statement highlights the direct link between Workable’s data capabilities and QualDerm’s financial stewardship.
The ability to meticulously track candidate sourcing channels, monitor pipeline movement, and analyze hiring outcomes has fundamentally elevated the talent acquisition function within QualDerm. It has transitioned from a purely administrative, operational role to a strategic department capable of providing executive-level insights. Leadership, including the CEO, CHRO, and COO, now engages directly with hiring data through Workable, rather than relying on secondhand summaries. This direct access fosters greater transparency, builds confidence in recruitment performance, and enables more informed strategic decisions across the organization. The data empowers the TA team to articulate their needs and successes in a language that resonates with executive leadership, solidifying their role as a critical business partner.
Optimizing Efficiency: The Impact of Video Interviews
One of the clearest demonstrations of Workable’s efficiency-boosting capabilities at QualDerm came through the strategic implementation of its video interview feature. The organization’s call center roles, characterized by high turnover, frequently presented a significant recruitment challenge. At one point, the team faced the daunting task of filling more than 10 simultaneous openings for these positions. Under traditional screening methods, this volume would have consumed an enormous amount of recruiter time, leading to significant delays in an already time-sensitive hiring process.
By activating Workable’s video interview feature for these critical roles, QualDerm was able to screen a large volume of candidates asynchronously and at scale. Recruiters could send out video screening requests, allowing candidates to record and submit their responses at their convenience. Crucially, hiring managers could then review these recordings on their own schedules, eliminating the logistical complexities and time-consuming coordination typically associated with live interviews. This streamlined approach resulted in an estimated 20 to 30 hours of recruiter time saved within a single 30-day period—a substantial gain in productivity for a small team managing such high volume.
The success of video interviews in the call center context has led to its expanded adoption across QualDerm. Leadership, including senior executives who previously had limited visibility into early-stage candidate evaluations, now actively participates in reviewing video screens. This broadens the perspective in the initial screening phase and aligns senior leaders more closely with the talent pipeline. As Iesha Vann notes, "Anyone can watch them now, including leaders. It opened up the process." The team is actively identifying additional roles and workflows where video interviewing can be strategically applied throughout the year, further embedding this efficient practice into their standard operating procedures. This proactive expansion underscores the platform’s versatility and its tangible benefits in optimizing the recruitment lifecycle.
Elevating the Candidate Experience: Communication and Engagement in a Competitive Market
In the highly competitive market for clinical and administrative talent within healthcare, candidate responsiveness and engagement are paramount. QualDerm has leveraged Workable’s communication tools to establish a significant competitive advantage by fostering faster, more immediate interactions with prospective hires.
- Texting for Immediacy: QualDerm utilizes Workable’s integrated texting feature throughout the entire hiring process. From initial outreach to scheduling interviews and sending pre-start communications, text-based interactions provide an immediacy that traditional email often lacks. This direct, accessible mode of communication has demonstrably reduced candidate drop-off rates and maintained a higher level of engagement at every stage of the recruitment funnel. In a market where top talent often has multiple offers, timely communication can be the deciding factor.
- Self-Scheduling for Convenience: The administrative burden of manually coordinating interview calendars across QualDerm’s 60-plus facilities was a significant drain on recruiter time. Workable’s self-scheduling functionality has revolutionized this aspect, allowing candidates to directly book into available interview slots. This eliminates the tedious back-and-forth email exchanges, accelerating the time to interview and enhancing the candidate experience by providing greater flexibility and autonomy.
- Branded Career Page: Recognizing that the candidate journey begins well before the first interview, QualDerm made a meaningful investment in building out a polished, branded careers page within Workable. This serves as a professional and inviting entry point for candidates, regardless of whether they initially discovered the job through a job board or directly. A strong employer brand presence on the careers page reinforces QualDerm’s reputation and attracts higher-quality applicants.
These features collectively contribute to a seamless, efficient, and positive candidate experience, crucial for attracting and retaining top talent in the demanding healthcare sector.
Compliance and Documentation Built Into the Workflow
Healthcare hiring is subject to stringent regulatory and compliance requirements that general-purpose ATS platforms often struggle to accommodate. Workable’s flexibility has allowed QualDerm to integrate critical documentation directly into their standard hiring workflows, ensuring adherence to these mandates without creating additional administrative overhead.
For instance, job description acknowledgment forms, which are essential for fulfilling various regulatory requirements, are now seamlessly incorporated as part of the standard hiring process within Workable. These documents are stored alongside all other candidate records, creating a complete, easily auditable hiring file for every hire. This centralized, compliant documentation system mitigates risk and streamlines internal and external audits.
Furthermore, the entire offer letter workflow is now fully managed within the Workable platform. This end-to-end management ensures consistency, accuracy, and efficiency in the final stages of hiring. Notably, even senior leadership, including the Chief Operating Officer (COO), has adopted and found this workflow straightforward and effective. This executive-level endorsement highlights the platform’s ease of use and its ability to manage critical, compliance-sensitive processes reliably.
Executive Adoption as a Signal of Success and Strategic Alignment
Perhaps the most compelling indicator of Workable’s successful integration and profound impact at QualDerm is the direct and active engagement of the organization’s executive leadership. The CEO, CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer), and COO all actively use the platform, not merely as passive recipients of reports, but as direct participants in various hiring workflows. This level of executive adoption is rare for an ATS and speaks volumes about both the usability of Workable and the elevated priority that hiring visibility and data-driven decisions now hold within QualDerm.
For the talent acquisition team, this executive buy-in is transformative. It means that the valuable data and insights they generate reside within a shared, accessible environment where leadership can engage with it directly. This direct engagement significantly reduces the friction typically associated with reporting cycles, eliminating the need for extensive manual report generation and presentation. It fosters a culture of transparency and increases confidence in hiring decisions at every level of the organization, solidifying the TA team’s role as a strategic business partner rather than a mere operational function. The executives’ direct interaction with Workable signals their trust in the data and the processes managed through the platform, reinforcing the strategic value of the talent acquisition function.
Broader Implications and Future Outlook
QualDerm Partners’ experience with Workable provides a compelling case study for healthcare organizations facing similar challenges of high-volume, multi-location recruiting in a fiercely competitive talent market. The results demonstrate that Workable delivers the critical functionalities demanded by the field: speed, enhanced visibility, robust compliance support, and a superior candidate experience that effectively reflects the professionalism of the organization.
The achievements are notable: a team of six effectively manages 787 annual hires while simultaneously handling up to 150 open requisitions. This impressive operational efficiency is directly attributable to the strategic capabilities provided by Workable. The establishment of a reliable "time to fill" metric at 32 days, coupled with the ability to manage "cost per vacancy," positions QualDerm’s talent acquisition as a data-driven, strategic asset. The time savings generated by features like video interviews and self-scheduling translate into tangible cost reductions and increased recruiter capacity, allowing the team to focus on higher-value activities like candidate engagement and strategic sourcing.
QualDerm’s unwavering recommendation of Workable, "without reservation," underscores the profound positive transformation experienced. For healthcare entities striving for growth and operational excellence, investing in an ATS that can provide such comprehensive support is no longer a luxury but a necessity. The partnership between QualDerm and Workable exemplifies how technology, when strategically implemented, can empower human resources functions to become powerful engines of organizational success, ensuring a steady supply of qualified talent to meet the ever-evolving demands of the healthcare industry. The model established by QualDerm offers a clear blueprint for other healthcare organizations looking to modernize their recruitment strategies and achieve similar levels of efficiency, data intelligence, and executive confidence.
