How Hoffmann Brothers Modernized Recruiting and Reduced Hiring Costs With Workable
For growing service companies, talent acquisition is not just an HR function — it is a direct driver of business performance. When your workforce exceeds 500 people and you are actively expanding through acquisitions, your recruiting infrastructure needs to scale just as fast as your headcount. That was precisely the challenge Hoffmann Brothers faced before partnering with Workable, a modern applicant tracking system (ATS) that transformed their hiring from a reactive, single-channel process into a streamlined, data-driven operation.
Who Is Hoffmann Brothers?
Hoffmann Brothers is a full-service residential and commercial contractor with more than 45 years of experience in the home services industry. The company offers a comprehensive suite of services, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, drain and sewer repair, appliance repair, and duct cleaning. With a workforce of over 500 employees, the company continues to grow through strategic acquisitions — most notably Ferguson Roofing and Blue Sky Plumbing — as part of an aggressive and ongoing expansion strategy.
Leading all talent acquisition efforts through every phase of that growth is Ryan O'Rourke, Talent Acquisition Manager at Hoffmann Brothers. His challenge was not simply filling open roles — it was building a recruiting engine capable of supporting a business that never stops growing.
The State of Recruiting Before Workable
Before implementing Workable, Hoffmann Brothers managed its entire recruiting process through a dated Human Resources Information System (HRIS) that simply could not keep pace with the company's needs. The system lacked the visibility, organizational depth, and scalability required to support a growing, multi-service workforce.
The core problems were significant and interconnected. There was no searchable resume database, which meant that every time a new position opened, the team was starting from scratch. There was no way to revisit candidates who had previously applied or who had shown interest in past roles. Every promising applicant who did not get hired vanished into a digital void with no record, no notes, and no possibility of rediscovery.
Beyond the lack of data retention, the team had concentrated all of their recruiting efforts on a single sponsored job platform — Indeed. While Indeed is undeniably a powerful job board, relying exclusively on one paid channel creates both financial risk and a candidate reach problem. Any fluctuation in that platform's performance, pricing, or algorithm directly impacted Hoffmann Brothers' ability to fill roles. There was no backup, no diversification, and no way to tap into passive talent across the broader labor market.
Manual and inconsistent data storage compounded these issues. Information lived in disconnected places — spreadsheets, email threads, personal notes — and there was no single source of truth for hiring managers or the talent acquisition team to reference. This made reporting difficult, decision-making slower, and collaboration between hiring stakeholders nearly impossible.
As Ryan O'Rourke described it directly: "Our process was pretty much sponsor the job on Indeed. There was no note-taking, no passive recruiting, no real system at all."
Why Hoffmann Brothers Chose Workable
The decision to implement Workable came from a clear-eyed recognition that the old approach could not support the company's ambitions. The evaluation criteria were practical: Hoffmann Brothers needed a solution that could go live quickly, reduce dependence on expensive job sponsorships, expand reach to a broader talent pool, and make it possible to track, organize, and rediscover candidates over time.
Workable delivered on all of those fronts. The platform was fully live within days of implementation — a critical factor for a company that cannot afford extended downtime in its hiring pipeline. The rapid deployment allowed Ryan and his team to begin seeing results almost immediately, without a lengthy onboarding period that would have stalled ongoing recruiting efforts.
The Results: Measurable Impact Across Every Hiring Metric
The improvements Hoffmann Brothers experienced after switching to Workable were both immediate and far-reaching. Here is a breakdown of the key outcomes:
Significant reduction in recruiting costs: By expanding beyond Indeed to more than 20 job boards through Workable's integrated multi-posting capabilities, Hoffmann Brothers dramatically reduced their reliance on costly job sponsorships. Workable's network allows recruiters to post to a wide range of free and premium job boards simultaneously, meaning the team no longer needed to spend heavily on a single platform to reach qualified candidates.
Expanded candidate reach: Moving from one sponsored platform to over 20 active job boards opened up an entirely new tier of candidate visibility. Hoffmann Brothers could now attract applicants from a much wider and more diverse pool, improving the quality and quantity of inbound talent across all departments and service lines.
Improved retention through better-fit hires: With access to richer candidate data, structured note-taking, and the ability to revisit past applicants, hiring managers could make more informed decisions. Better-fit hires naturally translate to improved employee retention — a metric that carries enormous financial and operational weight in the skilled trades industry, where turnover is chronically high and onboarding costs are substantial.
Passive recruiting and talent rediscovery: One of the most underappreciated gains was the ability to build and search a living candidate database. When new roles opened, Ryan's team could now look inward first — surfacing candidates who had previously applied, been screened, and were already partially vetted. This capability alone shortened time-to-fill and reduced the cost-per-hire for repeat or similar roles.
Lessons for Growing Service Companies
The Hoffmann Brothers story is not unique in its starting point — many mid-sized service businesses are still running recruiting out of spreadsheets or single-channel job boards. What makes this case study instructive is the clarity of the transformation and the speed at which it was achieved.
A few key lessons stand out for any organization evaluating its recruiting infrastructure:
Channel diversification is not optional at scale. Relying on a single job board, regardless of how dominant it is, creates fragility. Spreading job postings across 20 or more boards at no additional per-post cost is simply a smarter allocation of recruiting budget.
Data is a long-term recruiting asset. Every candidate who applies represents an investment of time and attention. Without a system that stores, organizes, and surfaces that data, companies are leaving recruiting value on the table every single day.
Speed of implementation matters. A recruiting platform that takes months to deploy is a liability during periods of rapid growth. The fact that Workable was fully operational within days meant Hoffmann Brothers could act, not just plan.
Final Thoughts
Hoffmann Brothers' transition to Workable illustrates what is possible when a growing company replaces outdated, reactive recruiting tools with a modern, integrated ATS. The results — reduced costs, expanded reach, improved retention, and faster hiring — are exactly the outcomes that scaling organizations need to remain competitive in a tight labor market. For talent leaders like Ryan O'Rourke, the right technology does not just make recruiting easier. It makes the entire business stronger.