Meritos gets the job done with Referoo

Meritos is an executive search, talent advisory and recruitment organisation with clients from the health, government, not-for-profit and higher education industries. When Meritos was engaged to undertake a large project with a not-for-profit client, Managing Partner and Founder, Chris Morrison, knew he needed to partner with a reference-checking tool that he could rely on.

Enter Challenge

Meritos was working with a large not-for-profit client that was undertaking an extensive recruitment project and required assistance with specific parts of the recruitment process.

Our client needed to place 180 candidates very quickly. The project required the reference checks within 2 weeks, said Morrison.

“As this was a large organisational change, there were a number of complexities around the project. For example, an additional layer of review needed to happen once a candidate had submitted their chosen referees. This was to ensure candidates weren’t asking for references from people that were competing for the same roles. For example, in some cases, candidates and their managers had applied for the same role.”

Due to the complexity of the project, and the short time frames, Meritos needed to automate reference checking in order to complete the project in the timeframe.

“We knew if we tried to complete the reference checks ourselves manually, it would take a full-time employee at least five weeks to complete. It wasn’t just the time factor that made us realise we couldn’t do this without a reference-checking partner.

“The risk of using a person to do nothing but check references all day every day for five weeks, would reduce the quality of the references, as well as creating additional delays with trying to schedule (and inevitably reschedule) calls, which would have been a logistical challenge for us.”

The Solutions

Meritos worked closely with the client to map out the process and design the reference questionnaires. Once there was an idea of what was needed from the reference-checking solution, Meritos collaborated with Referoo to bring the solution to life.

Referoo was fantastic at listening to what we wanted and creating a solution that would work for our particular needs.

“What I appreciated most about working with Referoo was the team’s focus on the solution. Even if they couldn’t do something immediately, they had a workaround or their development team had something coded and fixed quickly.”

Despite the complexity and fast turnaround of the project, the process and questionnaire set-up were completed quickly in Referoo’s system. “We had a really collaborative relationship, we would make suggestions along the way and Referoo were always open to our ideas, often even making changes immediately or at least taking them on board as long- term changes, and that really impressed me.”

The Results

Overall, 300 reference checks were completed in under two weeks, and Meritos completed the project well within the timeframe.

“What was really key for us was the high-touch customer support that Referoo provided. When you are doing a big project like this one, it is all the things that can go wrong that can undo you. For us, knowing that we would get the support exactly at the moment when we needed it, was so important in our decision to use Referoo.”

“That, and the fact that they made us look really good to our client! It was a challenge for our client to keep track of how the overall project was progressing because of the sheer volume, so they relied on us for their updates. We were able to provide daily progress reports based on Referoo’s dashboard, and reassure them that the project was on track.”

As a business owner, I was so impressed by the support and onboarding that we received from Referoo. I can’t stress enough the difference between them and the service we receive from other providers. I wholeheartedly recommend Referoo, and in fact already have!” concluded Morrison.