About Collingwood Search
Collingwood Search is a boutique executive search firm, specializing in building products, construction, industrial technology, and medical technology sectors. Established in 2005, Collingwood is a family-run business that focuses on providing high-quality recruitment services. With a small team of eight employees, Collingwood has been able to maintain strong client relationships while adopting new technologies to streamline its processes.
Challenges
Before implementing Invenias, Collingwood Search faced several operational challenges. Data was scattered across multiple places with assignment details, client information, and billing stored separately in FileFinder, spreadsheets, and Word documents.
According to Sarah Jones, Operations Manager at Collingwood Search, this disconnected system led to inefficiencies and made it difficult for the team to collaborate effectively.
Additionally, the team had no easy way to share real-time progress with clients, often spending time manually exporting information from their CRM into spreadsheets for reporting.
“Everything was kind of separate and there was nothing integrated,” explained Sarah. “Our system was clunky and slow.”
Solution: Invenias by Bullhorn
In 2020, Collingwood Search decided to switch to Invenias by Bullhorn. The transition was driven by the need for a more modern, collaborative, and efficient system that could bring together all aspects of executive search in one platform.
“We saw Invenias in a demo, and it was clear that it could do so much more than what we had,” said Sarah. “It was faster, more intuitive, and allowed us to manage everything in one place.”
With Invenias, the Collingwood team could manage assignments, track candidate progress, and generate reports, all from a centralized platform. The software’s integration with Outlook allowed the team to log emails and calls directly within the system, saving time and ensuring that all communications were captured and stored for future reference.
Invenias has become an integral part of our business. We simply couldn’t run the company without it.
Results
Improved collaboration and efficiency – Invenias has helped Collingwood’s team collaborate seamlessly. Managing Directors, consultants, researchers, and operations staff now work together on assignments, with everyone having real-time access to candidate profiles, interview notes, and feedback. This streamlined communication and allowed team members to pick up where others left off, ensuring that no detail was missed.
“I don’t think we could run our business without Invenias, because it ties everything together,” said Sarah. “For anyone on our team to be able to go into an assignment and see what’s been said between a client and a consultant is really useful.”
Enhanced client transparency and trust – The Invenias client portal has been a significant differentiator for Collingwood, allowing clients to log in and view the status of their assignments at any time. “With the client portal, our clients have a live overview of what’s going on with the assignments we’re recruiting for them,” explained Sarah. “Then, when we have catch up calls with our clients, our consultants are able to talk them through all the different candidates and their CVs.” This transparency has improved client relationships and provided a competitive edge.
Automation for increased efficiency – Collingwood has also benefited from leveraging automation with Invenias. Consultants are now reminded to update candidates on their progress, reducing the need for manual tracking. Additionally, post-placement review calls are automatically scheduled, ensuring that consultants follow up with clients and candidates at the appropriate times.
“Our team follows up with clients and candidates three, six, nine, and twelve months post-placement,” said Sarah. “Previously, our consultants would have had to manually create calendar reminders to make these calls in people’s diaries. With Invenias, our consultants get automated notifications every couple of months, reminding them to reach out.”
Sarah said these changes have made numerous impactful improvements to Collingwood’s administrative processes.
GDPR compliance made simple – Invenias has also played a pivotal role in helping Collingwood stay compliant with GDPR regulations. According to Sarah, the system automatically tracks candidate consent, preventing the team from progressing candidates without the necessary approvals. This automation has removed much of the manual oversight previously required to ensure compliance.
“We have the privacy extension, which is super helpful,” explained Sarah. “In the old days, you’d need to determine if you have permission to email someone. If you had forgotten, you’d need to go back and ask for it. Now it updates automatically, so there’s a lot less thinking that goes into it.”
When we first adopted Invenias, our team would receive a lot more notifications that people had forgotten to put in the company name or job titles into the system. Those notifications tend to be few and far between now. Those are the kinds of improvements that happen without us realizing right away.
Looking Ahead
Going forward, Collingwood Search aims to continue leveraging Invenias to optimize its business development processes. The team is focusing on creating a more streamlined approach for logging business development activities and automating outreach campaigns. Additionally, the team plans to take full advantage of Invenias’ automation capabilities to drive long-term growth.
“We have a qualified opportunities pipeline and early opportunities pipeline,” explained Sarah. “So, I encourage people who are putting in the forecasted roles to make sure that they actually put in a forecasted value. That’s part of the business development process review that we’re working on going forward.”
If you’re an exec search organization that is considering Invenias, I’d say you should give it a go. It's a really good platform.