Case Study - Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority - KeldairHR

Industry

Aviation Support

100+

Number of employees

8

Job Openings at a Time

KeldairHR takes hiring to new heights for the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority

The Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA) maintains the infrastructure, building and grounds of four airports, including the Harrisburg International Airport, and doing so takes people. A team of 105 employees, to be exact. There’s a number of different roles involved: building operations, ground maintenance, semi-skilled technicians, police and fire, dispatchers, customer service – including information desk, reception desk, Frequent Flyer Club – the list goes on. At the center of it all, Human Resource Manager Mick Burkett makes sure every team stays fully supported by helping hiring managers source and vet the right candidates for the job.

Mick and his colleagues have been on a hiring kick as of late, with about 15 recent hires and an average of eight open positions at any given time. KeldairHR helps them stay nimble, keep the lines of communication open – and turn the right candidates into newly minted members of the team.

From manual hassle to KeldairHR

What was the hiring process like at SARAA before KeldairHR? In a word: manual. It was time for a technology solution, but many ATS options were simply add-ons to expensive HR systems without the hiring-specific features and functionality they needed. Then Mick arrived on the scene. Having previously used KeldairHR, he knew it was exactly the right solution to streamline the applicant process. How would he sum up our ATS? “User-friendly, effective – and a great value.”

“I believe every department leader is unique in some way. It gives us the flexibility to focus on what’s important to each hiring manager. Being able to share comments and look at things having everything in one place, I find that very helpful. What I used to do on paper, taking notes on each applicant, I now just do that in the system.”

MICK BURKETT
Human Resources Manager

How did KeldairHR make a difference for hiring at SARAA?

Saving time on communications

Mick talks to a lot of applicants, so having one place to store his notes makes it easier to manage the growing number of job openings at SARAA. Any time he logs into the system, he can pick up right where he left off.

Getting the word out – and fast

Everyone knows the top sites for job searchers. But those aren’t the only places to be seen by applicants – and with our ATS, Mick can get near-instant exposure across a variety of job boards with automatic posting to:

Indeed
ZipRecruiter
Monster
Google
A branded company career page
And other industry-specific and local job boards

Want to go a step beyond just posting? Activate your employees’ network with single-purpose links for social media channels, company blogs, internal communication forums and more. Plus, you can track where applicants are coming from and compare performance across job boards.

An ATS that works for the whole team

Mick is at the center of hiring for SARAA, but thanks to KeldairHR, he doesn’t have to be the point of contact on everything. Hiring managers can access the system, review applicants and get to work without too much onboarding thanks to its simplicity. User-friendliness comes in handy, given that most hiring managers won’t access the system on an everyday basis. For a hiring manager who may only be involved in the hiring of a few people per year, it’s still easy to dive in, get oriented and get on with hiring. And for those managers filling positions more frequently, the system helps them gain major efficiencies as they go.

Internal collaboration made easy

It’s critical for Mick and position-specific hiring managers to work as a team, and the KeldairHR ATS keeps processes flowing seamlessly. First, Mick makes use of our yes/no screening feature to rule out unqualified candidates, then forwards a narrowed pool of applicants to the respective hiring managers. Even just this simple screening step saves Mick in the long run, because he doesn’t have to dig into individual resumes, interpret experience or make extra calls to determine if applicants have the core skills necessary to do the job.

Plus, he can incorporate position-specific questions from hiring managers into the application in addition to general questions that apply to every candidate. From there, hiring managers can log their feedback on applicants within the system so Mick knows who to follow-up with for an interview – all of which can be accomplished within the ATS.

“This would have been hell the old way that we did it,” said Mick.

Applicant-friendliness is everything

While KeldairHR makes it seriously easy for everyone to collaborate on hiring, it also makes sure candidates don’t get left out of the process. The teams at SARAA appreciate being able to instantly let applicants know that their application has been received and reviewed. And with automatic emails communicating next steps, Mick finds that he fields far fewer inquiries from applicants wondering about the status of their application. But most importantly, applicants can have a more positive experience seeking employment with SARAA, boosting the organization’s employer brand while saving employees time and effort.

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