UW Advancement builds a robust talent pipeline with Xref

The Bottleneck of Manual Reference Checks

Before partnering with Xref, the recruitment team at UW Advancement found themselves consistently bogged down by a highly manual and frustrating process. Chasing down referees and scheduling phone calls was a significant drain on valuable resources. Recruiters were spending hours playing phone tag, dealing with unreturned voicemails, and navigating conflicting time zones. This administrative burden routinely took up to five days to complete a single candidate's references, creating a massive bottleneck that slowed down their overall time to hire and left critical positions vacant for longer than necessary.

Traditional reference checking often relies on catching someone at the exact right moment during busy working hours. By shifting to Xref's digital platform, UW Advancement removed this friction entirely. Referees can now submit their feedback securely from any device at a time that suits them, even outside of standard business hours. This convenient approach drastically reduces turnaround times while providing a highly professional experience for the referee.

"Since implementation in the Spring of 2024, Xref has transformed our reference checking process at UW Advancement.”

- Sarah Eytinge - Senior Talent Leader | University of Washington

Automating for Efficiency and Compliance

By moving away from an outdated system to an automated, digital platform, the university successfully established a standardised reference checking process. This critical transition ensured that all candidate feedback was collected consistently and remained fully compliant with internal university policies. With Xref, recruiters use tailored questionnaires designed to gather specific, role-relevant insights without the risk of conversational bias that frequently occurs over the phone.

The automated system carefully documented everything within a secure environment, providing peace of mind and strict audit readiness. Data privacy is paramount for educational institutions, and Xref's robust architecture ensures sensitive information is protected at every step. The immense time saved allowed the team to completely shift their focus from reactive administrative tasks to high-value talent acquisition strategies.

"The elimination of manual reference checking has freed up our recruiting team to focus on more strategic work, including proactive sourcing, which has significantly enhanced our recruitment capabilities."

Building Integrated Hiring Intelligence and Talent Pools

Beyond just operational efficiency, the Xref platform offered unique and unexpected ways to grow the university's network of potential candidates. The built-in opt-in feature allowed referees to easily register their interest in learning more about careers at UW Advancement. This clever functionality effectively turned a standard administrative compliance task into a powerful proactive sourcing tool, helping the university build a robust pipeline of pre-qualified, warm leads for future vacancies in a highly competitive academic job market.

Finding quality talent is an ongoing challenge, and passive candidates are exceptionally valuable. Because referees are usually professionals working within similar fields as the candidates they recommend, they represent an ideal talent pool. Xref enables organisations to seamlessly tap into this network, transforming the final stage of the hiring process into an active recruitment strategy.

"An additional, and exciting, benefit of using the Xref system has been the ability for referees to opt-in and learn more about careers with UW Advancement. Through this feature, we've added nearly 200 individuals to our talent pipeline, opening new doors for engagement and future recruitment."

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