How McCormack significantly reduced their hiring costs

With over 55 years of experience, McCormack has built strong, long-standing relationships within the commercial construction industry. Grounded in family values that were instilled when the company was founded by Jack McCormack in 1969, they have grown from the small operation run out of the family garage to a successful business that has over 150 team members with support offices in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. 

Working across commercial sectors such as Commercial, Health, Hospitality and Retail, Industrial, and Government, they are a leading family-owned building services company that is nationally recognised for their standards in best practice. 

How is McCormack shaking up the construction industry? 

At McCormack, we are proud to create amazing spaces and we have a client-intimate approach to building better workspaces. Priding ourselves on our quality and our aim to be better every day, we operate under a boutique model that allows us to collaborate closely with clients to bring their vision to life. Our integrated approach fosters life-long relationships with our clients, while creating an inclusive team environment that feels like family.

Hiring trends and challenges that are unique to commercial construction

As an Australian commercial construction company, we are a part of a vital sector in the economy, facing many challenges that are impacting the sustainability of the industry more broadly. The industry faces several challenges in attracting and retaining skilled workers, the changing preferences of clients and their expectations of suitable workspaces and rapidly changing environmental regulations.

Attracting and retaining young workers is a particular hurdle as they can be deterred by the perceived societal status of being a construction worker, low diversity, and low innovation of the sector. The industry needs to improve its image and reputation by showcasing the opportunities and benefits of working in commercial construction, such as the variety of projects, the career progression, and the social impact.

Recruitment pain points

Before investing in Teamtailor, we were without an Applicant Tracking System and relied heavily on external recruitment agencies. This came with a hefty cost to the business as well as an inefficient recruitment and hiring process. We were unable to build a talent pool for us to keep touch with, and we had no way of building our employer brand effectively outside of the interview process. Recruitment had become a pain point for the company at a time when the labour market was stretched following the pandemic. This led us down the pathway of seeking an Applicant Tracking System where we found Teamtailor.

Why did you choose Teamtailor?

Teamtailor was not well known in the market at the time and we came across it due to its integration with our existing People Management System, IntelliHR. We compared it with other platforms and ultimately chose Teamtailor due to its low cost for the same functionality as other systems, playful and user-friendly format, and our collaboration with our account executive Nick Cheetham. He was more than happy for us to take our time researching systems and following our internal approval process. 

How has your experience been with Teamtailor so far?

Our experience with Teamtailor has been very positive. Teamtailor has helped to solve recruitment issues by providing the company with a platform to create and manage job ads, track and communicate with candidates, and collaborate with hiring teams. We have been able to streamline the hiring workflow, and reduce the cost of hiring by a little over 45%. With Teamtailor, we have successfully placed more than 30 roles in the financial year of 2024, most of which came to the hiring team as internal referrals or direct applicants. 

How has Teamtailor impacted your business overall?

Having a comprehensive careers portal has been critical for us in building an effective employer brand and increasing our visibility. With Teamtailor, we have been able to create engaging careers pages, showcasing our values, our workplace culture, and what working for us can do for them and their career. We can easily share our job openings to multiple job boards and social media with the simplicity of the click of a button. This has helped us reach more candidates and build a strong reputation in the industry as an employer of choice.

Teamtailor has streamlined our hiring process and has empowered managers to have more input in candidate reviews, ensuring the best candidate possible is interviewed and placed. Teamtailor enables us to manage all our candidates in one place, track their progress, and communicate with them easily. We can also collaborate with our team members, assign tasks, leave feedback, and schedule interviews. This has saved us a lot of time and hassle, and enabled us to make faster and better hiring decisions.

An unexpected benefit of introducing Teamtailor, has been improving the engagement of subcontractors and suppliers. We’ve been able to use the system to develop a subcontractor and supplier portal, establishment application, and prequalification process. This has been critical as it allows our business to better evaluate the skills, qualifications, and availability of subcontractors and suppliers, while managing compliance requirements. This has enabled us to track key details, find the best match for our needs, and ensure quality. 

What are your 3 best tips for recruiters?

1. Build your employer brand! This is how we attract the best candidates. It’s the message you send to candidates about who you are as an organisation before even speaking with them. It’s what makes candidates want to apply. It is also the part that external agencies struggle to communicate to their talent pools.
2. Use analytics accordingly! This will help you identify the best platforms for posting adverts, so you can focus on the job boards where you have the most success.
3. Take your time! Placing the right candidate is key to long-term success. Rushing to fill a role can come with many risks, such as: missing critical steps in an onboarding process, not having the appropriate equipment or systems access for a candidates first day, or placing a candidate that isn’t suited to the role.