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A leading Ivy League university partnered with AMS to modernize and unify its talent acquisition function across multiple schools and departments. Faced with fragmented processes, inconsistent candidate experiences, and legacy technology limitations, the university set out to build a more connected, data driven, and future ready recruitment model. Through strategic advisory support, technology planning, and change management, AMS helped the institution define a clear roadmap for transformation that strengthened collaboration, improved efficiency, and positioned talent acquisition as a strategic enabler of academic excellence.
Known for being at the forefront of innovation, this Ivy League school set out to modernize its talent acquisition (TA) processes. Faced with the challenges of recruiting across its diverse schools and departments, the school identified the need for a more unified and efficient approach. With its objectives clear, the school chose to partner with AMS to develop its cutting-edge strategy to streamline recruitment, enhance collaboration and drive solutions for the future of talent acquisition.
Client quote:
“I was reflecting on our partnership and what a success it was on so many levels. We really are making a difference; the way we show up with organization and excellence renews confidence in our competence. I personally want to thank AMS for being trusted partners, for caring the way you do and for having that translate into action and teamwork.” TA & Outreach Senior Leader.
Our client faced several conventional hurdles in higher education recruitment, including disparate processes across schools, a fragmented employer brand and inconsistent candidate experiences. The school wanted to dismantle these barriers to create a more unified and seamless candidate journey and build a cohesive employer brand that resonated across all its colleges and departments.
To achieve these ambitious goals, they needed to adopt best practices, monitor key metrics and leverage data-driven decision-making to optimize recruitment strategies. This would enable the school to attract and retain top talent while supporting its mission of academic excellence. Firmly aware that it needed a partner with a unique blend of operational TA and HR tech expertise, they selected AMS to help it transition from its legacy technology investments to a more agile and interconnected ecosystem, characterized by scalable architecture, automation and self-service capabilities.
A key aspect of this transformation involved synchronizing data across the university to ensure consistency, enabling a fully integrated data-driven approach to TA. The school aimed to enhance its use of business intelligence tools, reporting capabilities, insightful analytics and real-time dashboards to drive more informed decision-making.
In addition to technology upgrades, the school recognized the importance of learning, adoption, upskilling and change management as part of the implementation process. Engaging critical stakeholders across the school’s TA functions and building an inclusive project culture were crucial to accelerating innovation, fostering trust and ensuring project success.
AMS collaborated closely with the school to develop a multi-faceted solution to address their unique TA needs and set a new standard for recruitment in higher education. This partnership focused on several key areas, including future state requirements and process design, vendor search and selection, technology implementation and change management support.
1. Defining Future State Requirements and Process Design
The school’s vision for its future in TA was clear. Through process design workshops with their stakeholders to identify current pain points, desired outcomes and opportunities for improvement, AMS helped define how to achieve it. By aligning these insights with market-leading practices, AMS helped the school define future state processes that would support the university’s strategic recruitment goals.
The workshops provided a foundation for designing a new technology workflow and data model that could adapt to evolving needs. This approach guided the TA team in adopting new ways of working, such as automation and self-service, and enabled the university to establish the business requirements necessary for selecting the right technology solutions.
2. Vendor Search and Selection
Stemming from the workshops to define process, the next phase of the school’s partnership with AMS involved creating requirements to be used in the vendor search and selection process. AMS worked with HR leaders to develop a comprehensive list of requirements for a new TA technology platform, ensuring alignment with the school’s broader strategic objectives.
AMS provided advisory support in documenting these requirements, creating an evaluation framework, and conducting a fair and equitable assessment of potential vendors. This process ensured that the selected technology solution would meet the school’s needs while enabling scalability, data integration and enhanced user experience.
3. Technology Process Design and Change Management
A major component of the transformation was the implementation of a more agile, interconnected ecosystem that could support the school’s long-term TA objectives. The new system architecture facilitated significant efficiencies through automation, real-time analytics and scalable self-service features, allowing them to rapidly adapt to changes in the recruitment landscape.
AMS supported the change management workstream by guiding the schools HR teams through the adoption of new technologies and ways of working. The emphasis was on building confidence among stakeholders, upskilling team members and accelerating knowledge transfer within the Center of Excellence (CoE). This inclusive approach helped bring critical stakeholders and subject matter experts across the school on board, creating a unified front for driving innovation and ensuring a smooth transition to the new systems and processes.
Building a Stronger, Leaner Talent Acquisition Team
At the core of the school’s transformation was the commitment to developing a better, stronger and more efficient operational team that could deliver a modern recruitment experience to hiring managers, recruiters, sourcers and candidates alike. AMS collaborated with TA leaders to establish guiding principles that kept the team dedicated to maximizing the strategic value delivered to the school’s recruitment organization.
The newly defined processes and technology infrastructure enabled them to create a more favorable and consistent candidate experience across all the entire school, ensuring that their employer brand was consistently represented in the marketplace. This uniformity helped to attract high-quality candidates, improve employee engagement and retention, and foster diversity and inclusion within the workforce.
Engaging Stakeholders to Drive Innovation and Adoption
Throughout the project, the school and AMS worked together to engage key stakeholders within the TA functions across the university. This engagement was critical to understanding inefficiencies, identifying areas for improvement and establishing opportunities for creating consistency across all schools.
By actively involving stakeholders in the process, the school was able to define future state processes that aligned with their business requirements. This collaboration informed the design of the future technology workflow, data model, and ways of working, positioning our client to make well-informed decisions when selecting technology solutions.
During Phase 1, AMS helped the school achieve the following milestones:
These efforts were fundamental in setting a blueprint for the school’s TA Modernization project. As a result of the project the school was able to align on a school wide talent acquisition process and define the technology requirements needed to enable their modernization. With this alignment, they were able to go to market and select a TA Technology vendor capable of supporting their revolutionized approach that will:
Conclusion: A Transformative Journey Toward Talent Acquisition Excellence
The Ivy League school’s bold vision to transform its recruitment process was complemented by its partnership with AMS. The results represent a significant step toward redefining talent acquisition in higher education. By addressing the challenges of fragmented processes, inconsistent candidate experiences and legacy technology investments, our client has positioned itself as a leader in modernizing recruitment practices within academia.
The collaboration with AMS has enabled the school to build a more agile and interconnected ecosystem that supports strategic decision-making, fosters innovation and enhances operational efficiency. By cultivating a cohesive employer brand, creating a seamless candidate journey, and involving key stakeholders throughout the transformation, the school is well-equipped to continue attracting top talent and driving academic excellence into the future.
This case study demonstrates how a strategic partnership can help an institution like this Ivy League university to navigate the complexities of talent acquisition, leveraging technology and best practices to achieve long-term success.
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