- Challenge: Samtec has several offices across the globe, each of which had its own distinct recruiting processes, methods, and systems. Creating a unified hiring approach and ensuring each location-based TA team used the same recruitment platforms became a strategic imperative for the business.
- Solution: With Jobvite as the primary enterprise applicant tracking software for all Samtec talent acquisition teams worldwide, recruiters can source new talent, engage qualified candidates, schedule interviews, and collaborate with hiring managers far more easily than when they used disparate hiring solutions.
- Results: In addition to implementing a more structured and standardized TA approach across all offices internationally, Samtec has realized smoother recruiting ops and leveraged Jobvite’s user-friendly interface and design to find the info and data they need to succeed — and share with other hiring stakeholders — in their day-to-day, leading to much greater hiring productivity and ROI.
Since 1976, Samtec has been a foundational force in the connector industry, focused on finding a better way to make connectors while valuing the customer first. Samtec started in a garage with only $100k in capital and has grown to operate in over 40 countries.
The company has grown to $800 million in total sales. As one of the pioneers in sudden service, Samtec’s attention to its customers means needing to source not only the best and brightest workers for its team, but also those who can convey the company’s mission.
“Back in the beginning, we didn’t have an organized or structured system for our hiring,” said Samtec Compliance Coordinator and ATS Systems Administrator Michael Townsend.
“It was more of, ‘Here’s a requisition — go find somebody,'” Michael added. “So, we sought out an ATS because we needed to be able to centralize that process into one system.”
Before onboarding Jobvite, Michael indicated the company’s previous recruiting system was too cumbersome to maintain. Per Michael, it was “overly structured and lacked customization. We got out of using it as quickly as we could. Switching to Jobvite was the easiest transition.”
Michael and his team ultimately decided our applicant tracking system was the ideal platform to help unify Samtec’s global recruiting and hiring efforts into one, unified platform.
“We didn’t want to design our process around a system,” Michael continued. “We wanted a system that we could customize and design around the process we have in place. We treat our candidates like our customers; we reach out, provide feedback, and communicate.
At the end of the day, Michael noted he and the Samtec talent team simply needed a robust solution that made candidate sourcing and engagement easier and simpler for recruiters.
“Jobvite was the best way to do that,” said Michael. “It has the best customization, most user-friendly experience, and allows us to optimize our efforts more than we ever thought possible.”
Simplicity and user-friendly design Jobvite offers helps boost hiring manager engagement and collaboration for Samtec
Samtec went live with Jobvite in 2017 for all office locations to ensure the company’s overall recruiting processes were completely aligned, regardless of where hiring was happening.
“With our last system, you had to enter a rec twice to get it posted,” Michael elaborated.
“It would take 20-30 minutes just to enter. Hiring managers had no idea how to use our previous system and that work would come back onto the hiring team. And hiring managers that wanted to be hands-on had too much difficulty figuring out the system.”
With Jobvite’s enterprise ATS software in place, though, it’s totally different, Michael added.
“Jobvite has just made our lives so much easier,” according to Michael. “It structures everything in one area so managers understand how to navigate it. They have used our ATS more in the past three months with Jobvite than the last three years with our previous system.”
Another interesting element to Samtec’s hiring strategy: The company has a retention average of 15 years — massive for tech talent, in particular. And with 30-40% of people coming from some kind of referral, it’s easy to see why referrals are an important place for Samtec to invest.
“Employee engagement is a hot topic, but we’ve been doing it for 40 years,” said Michael. “Early on, we had a system to let all of our employees have a stake in the game.
“From employees being able to seamlessly share application invitations within the platform to integrations with LinkedIn and Indeed, Jobvite allows us to enhance and support the work we already do and focus on growing our team through the networks of our employees.”
Sourcing highly skilled talent, regardless of location, made far easier with Jobvite’s ATS
Many of Samtec’s hiring managers have been running global departments for over 25 years — they’ve grown up with the company culture. Looking ahead, Samtec is searching for new ways to infuse that culture into new hires.
“A quote we like to live by is, ‘Don’t look for culture fit, look for culture contribution,'” said Michael. “That’s what Samtec has always done. We want people who can contribute in a positive way, bring different ideas, absorb how we do business, and make us stronger.”
Given they’re a “skills-first company,” as Michael put it, Samtec’s TA team must “recruit heavily beyond our geographic region and find the right people that are a perfect fit for our needs.”
Samtec is the kind of company where people go to build and likely finish their career, Michael stated. They come to Louisville to not just work at Samtec, but to live and thrive.
“Jobvite allows us to recruit in new ways we haven’t before, which is more important than ever with the competition for top engineering talent,” per Michael. “We’re looking forward to utilizing Jobvite Recruitment Marketing to create campaigns that work for our unique needs and to get more involved into social media recruiting so we can expand our talent pool.”
Michael added changing the company’s approach to recruiting has been “incremental,” but he noted it will certainly evolve. “We’re excited to continue the work that’s been done with Jobvite.”
