Case Studies
Case Study: A Solution-Led AI Recruitment Project For A Social Care Organisation
A social care organisation approached VIQU IT initially looking for an AI specialist to help them understand how artificial intelligence could improve their operations. While AI was firmly on their agenda, the specific use cases, priorities and desired outcomes had yet to be defined.
The client's challenge...
Through our initial conversations, it became clear that one of the organisation’s key objectives was improving a high-volume, multi-stage applicant journey that was fundamental to the delivery of its services. They wanted to better understand where suitable applicants were being lost or delayed, why conversion varied across different teams and stages, and what could be done to help more suitable applicants successfully progress from initial enquiry through to approval.
Our actions...
The organisation initially contacted us, due to our previous experience providing AI recruitment services. After a scoping call with their IT Manager, we arranged a meeting with the wider team including the CFO, CEO and other relevant stakeholders to get a better understanding of the current processes in use and what they were looking to achieve.
Rather than immediately recruiting against a predefined technical skillset or assuming AI itself was the answer, we recommended taking a step back. The key was to properly understand the business problem, establish what the available data could tell us, and identify where changes to the journey, people, processes, automation or AI could have the greatest impact.
By approaching this requirement with a consultative, solution-led approach, we were able to look beyond the initial resourcing requirement and consider the wider business needs, challenges, and what success could look like for the organisation.
We recommended recruiting an AI specialist to embark upon a Discovery Phase, which the client agreed with. We launched an outreach campaign in order to create a shortlist of qualified professionals.
In addition to other candidates we identified within our current network, we put forward a contractor we’d previously connected with an NHS Trust, as part of our VIQU IT Volunteer Initiative back in 2020.
We were confident he was a particularly good option as we’d worked with him previously and understood the high-quality service he could deliver. The client agreed and we recommended the best route forward was to formally engage him through a Statement of Work piece, to undertake a Discovery Phase, with the following deliverables:
- A clearly mapped end-to-end customer journey, supported by insight and evidence
- Identification of bottlenecks, effort hotspots, backlog points, and drop-off reasons
- Evidence-based recommendations on where improvements would have the greatest impact. This could include – journey or process change, automation, RPA, AI or removal of friction or unnecessary handoffs
- A practical, decision-ready set of next steps, rather than a pre-defined solution
The outcomes...
During the Discovery Phase, the contractor reviewed current processes and was able to identify bottlenecks in the business and areas where improvements could be made through changes to the existing journey, automation, RPA and AI. A further benefit was the consultant’s ability to draw upon a wider team of specialists, giving the client access to additional expertise as the requirements developed.
The contractor first produced a detailed report showing where and how improvements could be made and the potential business benefits and efficiencies that could be achieved. He then proposed a solution, including implementation, which provided good value for money, in order to give the client a fuller picture and enable them to make an informed decision.
The client was impressed by the contractor’s work and are now deciding how to implement his findings. The VIQU IT team are helping provide support to inform these decisions and assist with next steps.
Find out more about VIQU IT’s AI recruitment services to understand how we can support your AI hiring needs.
"We took time to understand the wider challenge, locating someone who could take on a discovery phase, rather than just pushing AI for the sake of it."
“For me, that’s where we can really add value to organisations exploring AI – they don’t need to know exactly what resource or technology they need before speaking with us – we’re happy to support and inform that final decision.”
Nicholas Hopkins
