Case Study – imatters

imatters is a leading staffing and recruiting agency for candidates and employers in the eye care industry. Founded in 2003, imatters works with clients across all facets of the eye care community, including large brands, medical centers, universities, and private practices.

imatters possesses the largest database of eye care professionals comprising 160,000 candidates, including ophthalmologists, optometrists, opticians, nurses, sales representatives, receptionists, surgical technicians, C-level executives, and many more roles. Because every imatters recruiter has real-world experience in the eye care industry, the firm intimately understands the complexities of the business and can help clients achieve results faster. In fact, imatters boasts a 97% success rate in matching clients with high-quality talent.

Challenges

The eye care labor market is exceptionally tight – imatters estimates a 2% unemployment rate across the industry. Therefore, time is of the essence when recruiting eye care talent, so imatters must be quick to find and connect with qualified job seekers.

When sourcing from general job boards, imatters has seen a limited number of professionals in the eye care community. The firm needed a solution that would connect its recruiters with high-quality eye care candidates to help clients fill their positions and meet their hiring goals.

To compete for top talent, imatters is always trying new approaches, adjusting their strategies, and experimenting with different tools and technologies, whether that means using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop compelling job descriptions or sharing the latest industry trends and research in its blog.

With that progressive mindset, imatters sought a new resource for expanding its talent pool, as access to a deep database of qualified eye care talent is vital to the company’s success. The database needed to include current contact information since it’s not uncommon for job seekers to change their email address or phone number every few years. The wrong contact information can hinder the ability to connect with talent quickly, if at all.

Solutions

imatters looked no further than iHire, an industry-specific employment platform with 57 talent communities, including iHireOptometry, and an up-to-date resume database of 102,000 eye care professionals. With iHire’s Resume Search, imatters can proactively search for relevant, engaged eye care talent with current contact information to match with clients.

To advertise jobs, imatters first used iHire’s Job Slots – flexible, interchangeable job postings that promote openings to the right candidates in their search results, on their iHire account dashboards, and in branded email alerts. More recently, imatters began using iHire’s automated Job Slots. With a link to imatters’ website’s careers page, automated Job Slots post multiple jobs with no manual effort.

When a job seeker applies to imatters’ jobs, recruiters are notified instantly via email so they can reach out right away. From there, imatters can communicate with candidates directly through iHire’s platform, expediting the recruiting process. If a job seeker has opted to receive text messages through iHire, imatters can reach them even faster. Plus, imatters uses iHire’s candidate management tools to tag and organize job seekers as they move through the recruitment funnel.

Results

imatters has posted more than 400 jobs with iHire and estimates that 50% of the roles its clients have filled across the board have come from iHire’s talent pool. While most recruiters in the eye care industry take 90 days to fill a position, imatters fills within seven to 14 days. This is not only due to iHire’s assistance, but also imatters’ commitment to maintaining relationships throughout the eye care community and emphasizing growth potential for prospective hires.  

“Our clients say we give them better-quality candidates, and we don’t waste their time presenting them with irrelevant applicants,” said Charisse Toale, President and Senior Recruiter, imatters. “iHire helps us find good quality, eye care-specific people in a very short period of time.”

With iHire’s Resume Search, imatters knows that it’s providing clients with the most accurate candidate information – and those job seekers are committed to careers in the eye care industry, unlike many candidates imatters finds on generic job boards.

“Utilizing data sources like iHire to know when a candidate may be moving to a new area or starting their job search is essential,” Toale added. “We see iHire as the ‘water cooler’ of the active candidate pool, while are the water cooler of the active and passive candidate pool in eye care.”

Automated Job Slots are proving to be a major time-saver for imatters. imatters no longer has to duplicate efforts by posting jobs both to its site and on iHire, giving the firm more time and resources to focus on connecting with talent before the competition. imatters is now working with iHire to implement prescreening questions to simplify the application process, thereby reducing their time and costs in vetting a prospect for a client.

imatters also credits iHire’s brand with helping the firm connect with the right talent. “We’re always reviewing sources and testing out other products and job boards, but iHire’s brand has allowed the company to attract the volume of eye care talent to build an extensive, accurate database,” Toale continued. “When we post with iHire, we do so with the idea that we’re strengthening our brand in the eyes of those seeing our career opportunities.”

Toale noted that iHire has become more than just a data source, as imatters often references iHire’s content, including job search tips and industry reports, in its blog. This helps imatters become a knowledge base for the eye care community, so when candidates are ready to make a career move, they know where to turn.

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