Building a Modern, Measurable Recruiting Function

Client Profile

Design Solutions & Integration (DSI) is a growing, multi-division Oil & Gas construction, fabrication, and field-services company operating across multiple states and business units.

The Challenge

As DSI grew in the Oil & Gas sector, hiring demand increased in both volume and complexity across field operations, embedded personnel, technical roles, and corporate functions. Recruiting had become fragmented across business units and locations, with no single applicant-tracking workflow governing the hiring process.

Recruiters and hiring managers operated through multiple processes, interview practices differed by manager, candidate information was scattered, and meaningful recruiting data was difficult to capture. Recruiter capacity was also being consumed by manual follow-up, scheduling, applicant screening, and re-engagement activity, while DSI continued to rely on external search firms for portions of its hiring demand.

The objective wasn’t simply to purchase an ATS. DSI needed to build an internal recruiting operating model that could scale with the workforce demands of an Oil & Gas business.

The Strategy

The transformation was built around four complementary capabilities: workflow, automation, interview intelligence, and behavioral insight.

Lever: Establishing the Recruiting System of Record

Lever became the central applicant tracking system and recruiting workflow hub. Job structures and templates were standardized to reduce inconsistent job naming and improve sourcing and reporting. Lever also created the foundation for downstream integrations with payroll, onboarding, background screening, and other employee systems, reducing duplicate data entry and manual handoffs.

Sense: Automating Candidate Engagement

Sense was layered into the recruiting environment to automate candidate communication and lifecycle activity. Recruiters could automate text and email outreach, screening sequences, scheduling, and candidate re-engagement. Simple journey logic supported knockout questions and rediscovery campaigns without requiring heavy IT support.

Automation was intentionally used to remove repetitive administrative work so recruiters could spend more time on sourcing, candidate relationships, and hiring-manager partnership.

BrightHire: Making Interviews Measurable and Coachable

BrightHire introduced interview intelligence. Interviews could be recorded and transcribed, role-specific interview guides standardized, and interviewer scorecards reviewed after the conversation. Recruiting leaders could coach managers from actual interview evidence instead of anecdotal feedback, making interviewing an observable and improvable capability.

Predictive Index: Adding Behavioral Context

Predictive Index added behavioral context to finalist evaluation and manager coaching. Job targets were created collaboratively with hiring managers, and PI results were used to surface potential alignment and stress points, inform targeted interview questions, and support onboarding and coaching after hire.

Operationalizing the Model

Technology alone would not create the transformation, so DSI implemented process controls around the operating model. Standard job families were built into Lever. Sense journeys were configured for repeatable candidate workflows. BrightHire templates were created for recruiter screens and technical interviews. Managers were trained to use structured scorecards and interview recordings. PI job targets were established collaboratively rather than imposed as a standalone assessment.

The model was initially tested through targeted hiring programs so the team could refine questions, integrations, workflows, and service expectations before broader rollout. The result wasn’t four disconnected technologies — it was an integrated recruiting operating system.

The Outcome

Automated scheduling and candidate communication reduced administrative work and accelerated movement through the hiring process. BrightHire created visibility into interview quality and enabled targeted manager coaching. Predictive Index added behavioral information to strengthen interview focus and onboarding discussions. Lever provided the common workflow tying the process together and reduced manual handoffs into downstream HR processes.

Six-Week Payback

Within the first six weeks, savings in external recruiting-firm fees were large enough to cover the full-year cost of DSI’s newly established recruiting department.

That result materially changed the economics of the function. Recruiting was no longer simply an administrative cost center. DSI had created an internal capability that could replace expensive third-party search activity while giving the organization more control over candidate experience, hiring quality, interview discipline, recruiting data, and institutional knowledge.

Why It Matters

In Oil & Gas, talent acquisition often has to support fluctuating project demand, geographically dispersed hiring, specialized technical roles, and time-sensitive field staffing. A modern recruiting capability therefore needs more than an ATS: it needs an operating model in which technology removes low-value work while recruiters and hiring managers retain responsibility for judgment, relationships, and hiring decisions.

Key Takeaways

• An ATS should establish operating discipline, not simply store applicants
• Automation should remove repetitive recruiter work while preserving human judgment and candidate relationships
• Interview quality becomes improvable only when it becomes observable
• Behavioral assessments create more value when they inform interviews and onboarding rather than being used as isolated selection gates
• Technology produces leverage when it is integrated into a defined operating model
• The financial case for internal recruiting can be substantial when external search spend is converted into internal capability