Global social-first creative agency We Are Social has dramatically streamlined its talent acquisition processes, achieving an average reduction of five to ten days in time to hire and time to fill, following a strategic adoption of Workable’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This significant improvement, cultivated over a four-and-a-half-year partnership, has transformed the agency’s ability to recruit top-tier talent across its diverse global footprint, moving from a fragmented, manual system to a centralized, data-driven operation. The transition has not only accelerated hiring timelines but also enhanced candidate experience, ensured process consistency, and empowered hiring managers with greater accountability, providing a crucial competitive edge in the fast-paced creative industry.
The Challenge: Navigating Global Talent Acquisition in a Social-First World
We Are Social stands as a formidable force in the global creative landscape, distinguished as a social-first agency. With offices strategically located across multiple continents, the agency boasts an impressive client roster that includes some of the world’s most recognizable brands, such as Adidas, Amazon Music, and Lucozade. Its core mission revolves around crafting impactful social content and campaigns at scale, operating at the dynamic intersection of culture, creativity, and data. This unique operational model necessitates a constant influx of diverse and specialized talent.
Employing just over 1,000 individuals globally, We Are Social’s hiring needs span an exceptionally wide range of disciplines. From agile content creators and community managers who are the frontline of social engagement to senior global heads of research and insights driving strategic understanding, the agency requires a talent pool that is both broad in skill and deep in expertise. The inherent breadth of these roles, coupled with the global footprint required to access and cultivate such talent, makes recruitment not merely an operational task but a strategic imperative and a complex logistical challenge. The competitive nature of the creative industry, where top talent is constantly sought after, further intensifies this pressure, demanding speed, precision, and an impeccable candidate experience.
Before the implementation of Workable, We Are Social’s recruitment infrastructure was largely characterized by a patchwork of disparate tools and manual processes. The backbone of their hiring efforts relied heavily on Google Sheets, a system that, while flexible for small-scale operations, quickly became a bottleneck for a rapidly expanding global agency. Candidate information was scattered across numerous trackers, often owned by different teams and updated inconsistently, leading to a fragmented and unreliable overview of the talent pipeline. There was no centralized repository for interview feedback, no standardized mechanism to ensure process consistency across diverse global offices, and critically, no clear, real-time visibility into the overall recruitment landscape.
This lack of structural integrity directly impacted the candidate experience. Without a structured communication workflow, the quality, consistency, and timeliness of candidate touchpoints varied wildly. Some candidates might have progressed swiftly through a well-managed process, receiving prompt updates and clear guidance. However, others invariably fell through the gaps, experiencing delays, lack of communication, and a generally uneven and unprofessional experience. In an industry where a company’s brand is paramount, a disjointed candidate experience represented a significant reputational risk. As one internal stakeholder noted, reflecting on the pre-Workable era, "The hiring process before Workable was pretty slow. It was very clunky. We were looking for one source of truth, an opportunity to have everything in one place, and an understanding of what that looked like globally." The broader strategic picture was equally obscured, with the talent acquisition team lacking unified data, unable to reliably assess hiring performance across markets, identify systemic breakdowns, or make informed, evidence-based decisions about where to focus improvement efforts. This meant that the talent function was largely reactive, struggling to keep pace with the agency’s ambitious growth.
The Strategic Pivot: Why Workable Was Chosen
Recognizing the escalating challenges and the critical need for a more robust and scalable solution, We Are Social embarked on a search for an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that could address their unique requirements. Their need extended far beyond a mere database; they sought a comprehensive platform capable of standardizing recruitment processes without sacrificing the operational flexibility essential for diverse markets and cultural nuances. Key considerations included a tool that hiring managers would genuinely adopt and utilize, and a system that could render the talent acquisition team’s work visible, measurable, and ultimately, strategic.
Workable emerged as the preferred solution, precisely addressing each of these identified needs. Its appeal lay in its ability to provide a single, unified platform for managing candidates globally, effectively consolidating all recruitment activities into one accessible system. The platform offered robust automation capabilities designed to reduce manual coordination, thereby freeing up valuable recruiter time. Furthermore, Workable’s advanced reporting features promised to surface critical data that had previously been non-existent, providing unprecedented insights into recruitment performance. Crucially, its flexible structure was capable of supporting the agency’s commitment to skills-based hiring without necessitating a complete overhaul of existing workflows, ensuring a smoother transition and higher user adoption. The subsequent four-and-a-half-year partnership between We Are Social and Workable underscores the sustained value and effectiveness of this strategic decision.
Transformative Results: A Deep Dive into Key Metrics
The implementation of Workable marked a profound transformation in We Are Social’s talent acquisition capabilities, yielding quantifiable improvements across multiple critical metrics. The shift from scattered Google Sheets to a single, integrated ATS fundamentally altered how the talent acquisition team operates, establishing a new paradigm of efficiency, consistency, and data-driven decision-making.
Accelerated Time to Hire and Time to Fill:
One of the most impactful outcomes has been a meaningful reduction in both time to hire and time to fill, averaging an impressive five to ten days across various markets and roles. In the competitive landscape of the creative industry, where top talent can be off the market rapidly, this acceleration is a significant competitive advantage. For a global agency like We Are Social, every day saved translates into substantial business benefits. Reduced vacancy costs, which include lost productivity from open positions, expenses for temporary staff, and delays in project initiation, are directly mitigated. Faster hiring means new team members can onboard quicker, contributing to client projects sooner, and allowing the agency to scale more efficiently in response to market demands. Industry benchmarks for time to hire in creative roles often range from 30 to 60 days; a 5-10 day reduction against these figures represents a substantial improvement in operational agility and responsiveness.
Enhanced Candidate Experience and Employer Branding:
We Are Social crafts campaigns for some of the world’s most sophisticated consumer brands, and its internal candidate experience needed to reflect that same high standard. Prior to Workable, this was often not the case. Workable’s automated communication features have successfully closed this gap. When a candidate progresses from application to a phone screen, an automated, branded email is dispatched immediately. This eliminates delays and the need for manual follow-ups, ensuring candidates receive prompt, consistent, and professional responses at every touchpoint. This consistency strengthens We Are Social’s employer brand, portraying the agency as a professional, responsive, and desirable place to work, which is critical for attracting and retaining top talent in a candidate-driven market. It also significantly reduces candidate drop-off rates, as engaged candidates are less likely to disengage due to communication vacuums.
Process Consistency and Centralization as a "Single Source of Truth":
The replacement of fragmented Google Sheets with a single, unified ATS has delivered unparalleled process consistency. Candidate information, communication history, detailed interview feedback, and real-time pipeline status now reside in one central location, accessible to all authorized personnel globally. For an agency with offices spanning multiple continents, this centralization transcends mere convenience; it ensures that a hiring manager in London operates from the same baseline information as their counterpart in New York or Singapore. There is no ambiguity about a candidate’s status, previous interactions, or feedback, fostering seamless collaboration and reducing operational friction across regions. This "one source of truth" approach is vital for maintaining compliance, streamlining audits, and ensuring equitable hiring practices across the entire organization.
Structured Skills-Based Hiring with Scorecards:
We Are Social operates as a skills-based hiring organization, prioritizing competencies and capabilities over traditional qualifications alone. This approach necessitates a robust and objective evaluation process. Workable’s integrated scorecard functionality has become central to how the agency addresses this challenge. Hiring managers are prompted to complete structured evaluations tied directly to the specific competencies deemed essential for each role. These scores are visible, comparable, and feed into an overall assessment, making hiring decisions more defensible, transparent, and consistent across diverse teams and global markets. This structured methodology helps mitigate unconscious bias, ensuring that hiring decisions are based on objective criteria directly relevant to job performance, thereby enhancing the quality and diversity of hires.
Enhanced Hiring Manager Accountability:
One of the more practical and widely appreciated gains has been the significant improvement in hiring manager accountability. Previously, chasing interview feedback from busy hiring managers was a recurring and time-consuming drain on the talent acquisition team’s resources. Workable’s automated notification system has fundamentally altered this dynamic. When a candidate requires evaluation or an interview debrief, the relevant hiring manager receives an automated prompt. This proactive notification system means recruiters no longer need to manually intervene or send repeated reminders. Feedback is submitted promptly, logged centrally within the ATS, and can then be efficiently utilized to construct high-quality, timely responses for candidates. This automation not only saves countless hours for the TA team but also accelerates the decision-making process, ensuring that promising candidates are not lost due to internal delays. As an internal source (presumably Simon, a key TA leader) shared, "I love the fact that each hiring manager gets a notification to say we need feedback on a candidate. It isn’t just me having to chase them. They get that automated."
Robust Reporting and Analytics for Strategic Insights:
Perhaps one of the most significant long-term benefits is the elevation of the talent acquisition function from a purely operational role to a strategic one, largely due to unprecedented access to data. The team can now generate real-time reports on critical metrics such as candidate source effectiveness, time to hire, time to fill, and overall pipeline health. This data is not just available globally but can be granularly analyzed by individual market or region. This level of detail fundamentally changes the conversation around recruitment performance. Instead of making broad generalizations about where recruiting is performing well or poorly, the TA team can now pinpoint specific markets, identify bottlenecks at particular stages of the pipeline, and recognize emerging patterns. This data-driven approach provides the team with both the credibility and the context necessary to drive meaningful, targeted improvements across the organization. The ability to measure and assess recruitment performance with hard data empowers proactive strategy adjustments and optimized resource allocation. "The biggest benefit is the fact that we have the data to actually be able to say and assess that. We now have a broader picture of what recruitment looks like for We Are Social," affirmed the internal stakeholder.
The Operational Shift: How Workable Redefined Workflow
The integration of Workable has not merely optimized individual metrics; it has fundamentally redefined the operational workflow of talent acquisition at We Are Social. The concept of centralization has taken on a new dimension, allowing for consistent practices across diverse geographical locations. Candidate information, communication history, and interview feedback are now housed in a single, accessible platform. This means that a hiring manager in one market can operate with the same baseline information and adherence to agency standards as a counterpart in another, eliminating ambiguity and fostering global cohesion.
Beyond centralized data, Workable’s automation capabilities have streamlined numerous administrative tasks. Automated emails for interview scheduling, rejection notifications, and offer letters reduce the manual workload on recruiters, freeing them to engage in more strategic, high-value activities such as candidate sourcing, building talent pipelines, and fostering relationships with hiring managers. This shift transforms recruiters from administrative coordinators into strategic talent advisors.
Moreover, the newfound data visibility has empowered the talent acquisition function to operate with a proactive, rather than reactive, stance. By analyzing real-time data on candidate sources, time-to-hire trends, and pipeline health, the team can identify potential issues before they become critical, optimize sourcing channels, and even forecast future talent needs with greater accuracy. This strategic capability allows We Are Social to adapt swiftly to market changes, ensure a continuous supply of top talent, and align recruitment efforts directly with the agency’s business objectives and growth trajectory.
Beyond the Platform: The Value of Partnership
While the technical capabilities and features of the Workable platform have been instrumental in We Are Social’s success, internal sources highlight that the relationship extends beyond merely the product itself. The quality of Workable’s customer service has been singled out as a defining and highly valued aspect of the partnership. The support team has consistently demonstrated responsiveness, helpfulness, and a genuine commitment to addressing We Are Social’s needs. This level of support is particularly critical for a lean talent acquisition function operating across multiple time zones and diverse global markets, where quick resolutions and expert guidance are paramount. "In addition to Workable being a great product, the customer service is definitely one of the key highlights. Super supportive, super helpful, and always on hand when we need them," noted the internal source. This strong partnership ensures that We Are Social can fully leverage the platform’s capabilities and adapt it effectively to their evolving global recruitment demands.
Strategic Implications and Future Outlook
Four and a half years into their Workable partnership, We Are Social now possesses a talent acquisition function that is demonstrably faster, more consistent, and more data-driven than at any previous point in the agency’s history. The strategic move from a chaotic system of disparate spreadsheets to a unified, intelligent ATS has systematically removed structural friction at every stage of the hiring process.
The implications of this transformation are far-reaching. Hiring managers are now more accountable, supported by automated prompts that ensure timely feedback and decision-making. Candidates receive a superior, more professional experience, reflecting the high standards of a global creative agency. Most critically, the talent acquisition team has gained the unprecedented visibility required to manage a complex global operation and the granular data necessary for continuous improvement. This empowers them to move beyond reactive hiring to proactive talent strategy, identifying emerging trends, optimizing resource allocation, and strategically building a workforce capable of driving future innovation.
For a global creative agency whose sustained success hinges on its ability to attract, hire, and retain exceptional talent across a vast array of disciplines and geographies, these improvements are not merely back-office efficiencies. They represent a profound competitive advantage. In an era where talent is increasingly the ultimate differentiator, We Are Social’s optimized recruitment ecosystem ensures it can consistently secure the creative minds and strategic thinkers needed to maintain its position at the forefront of the social-first marketing world. The journey with Workable stands as a compelling case study for how modern ATS solutions can empower global organizations to navigate the complexities of talent acquisition, turning a logistical challenge into a strategic cornerstone for growth and innovation.
