How We Are Social Cut Time to Hire and Unified Global Recruiting with Workable
In the world of modern talent acquisition, speed and consistency are no longer luxuries — they are competitive necessities. For We Are Social, a globally recognized social-first creative agency, these two imperatives presented a significant operational challenge. Operating across multiple continents, hiring across wildly different disciplines, and managing a growing workforce of just over 1,000 employees, the agency needed a recruiting solution that could keep pace with the demands of a fast-moving creative industry. Their answer was Workable, an applicant tracking system that has fundamentally transformed how they attract, evaluate, and hire talent worldwide.
Who Is We Are Social?
We Are Social is far more than a typical creative agency. Operating at the intersection of culture, creativity, and data, the agency specializes in social-first content and campaigns that resonate at a global scale. Their client roster reads like a who's who of the world's most influential brands, including Adidas, Amazon Music, and Lucozade, among many others.
With offices spanning multiple continents, We Are Social must recruit across an exceptionally wide range of roles. On any given week, the talent acquisition team may be simultaneously sourcing content creators, community managers, data analysts, and global heads of research and insights. The sheer breadth of disciplines, combined with the geographic complexity of international hiring, makes recruiting both a strategic priority and a logistical puzzle that demands a sophisticated solution.
We Are Social has been a Workable customer for four and a half years — a partnership that has delivered measurable, lasting results across every dimension of their hiring operation.
The Core Challenge: Speed, Scale, and Consistency
Before implementing Workable at scale, We Are Social faced problems that will sound familiar to many talent acquisition professionals managing global teams. Recruiting processes varied significantly from office to office, making it difficult to maintain a consistent candidate experience across geographies. Communication with candidates was often inconsistent or delayed, particularly during high-volume hiring periods. And the time it took to move a candidate from initial application to final offer — the critical metric known as time to hire — was longer than the agency needed it to be in an increasingly competitive talent market.
For a creative agency whose reputation depends on being at the forefront of culture and innovation, a slow or disjointed hiring process was a liability. Top creative talent has options, and a candidate who experiences delays or poor communication during the interview process will often simply move on to another opportunity. The agency needed to move faster, communicate better, and create a unified global recruiting operation without sacrificing the quality of its hiring decisions.
How Workable Solved the Problem
Reducing Time to Hire by 5 to 10 Days
One of the most significant and immediately quantifiable outcomes of We Are Social's use of Workable has been a reduction in average time to hire and time to fill of five to ten days. In practical terms, this means that candidates move through the pipeline more quickly, offers reach qualified candidates before they accept competing offers, and open positions are filled faster — reducing the cost and operational disruption associated with vacancies.
This improvement did not happen by accident. Workable's structured pipeline management tools give recruiters a clear, real-time view of where every candidate stands in the process. Bottlenecks become visible before they become problems, enabling hiring managers and talent acquisition teams to take action quickly and keep momentum moving forward. When every stage of the funnel is clearly mapped and progress is trackable, the natural result is a faster, more efficient process.
Automating Candidate Communications at Every Stage
Candidate experience is increasingly recognized as a proxy for employer brand. The way a company treats candidates during the hiring process signals how it will treat employees once they are on board. For We Are Social, automating stage-based communications through Workable has been a transformative change.
Rather than relying on individual recruiters to manually send updates at every touchpoint — a process that is both time-consuming and prone to inconsistency — Workable's automation tools ensure that candidates receive prompt, professional, and consistent communications whenever they move from one stage of the pipeline to the next. Whether a candidate is moving from application review to a first interview, or from a final interview to an offer stage, they receive timely information that keeps them engaged and informed.
The result is a candidate experience that reflects well on We Are Social's brand, reduces candidate drop-off caused by perceived disorganization, and frees up the recruiting team to focus on higher-value activities like relationship building and strategic sourcing.
Unifying Global Recruiting Processes
Perhaps the most strategically important outcome of the partnership has been the creation of a unified global recruiting operation. Before Workable, different offices operated with different processes, different tools, and different standards. This fragmentation made it difficult for the central HR and talent acquisition team to maintain oversight, report accurately on global hiring metrics, or enforce consistent quality standards across geographies.
Workable provides a single platform through which all of We Are Social's global offices operate. Regardless of which continent a role is being filled in, the process follows the same structured framework, the same communication standards, and the same reporting infrastructure. This consistency gives leadership confidence that every candidate — whether applying for a role in London, New York, or Sydney — receives the same quality of experience and is evaluated against the same professional standards.
The Business Impact: Why This Matters
The improvements We Are Social has achieved through Workable translate directly into measurable business value. Faster hiring means lower vacancy costs and reduced pressure on existing team members who absorb workload during open periods. Better candidate communications mean stronger employer brand positioning in competitive creative talent markets. And global process consistency means the recruiting function can scale efficiently without sacrificing quality as the agency continues to grow.
For a company whose success depends on attracting and retaining the most creative, culturally attuned talent in the industry, these outcomes are not peripheral — they are central to the business strategy.
Key Takeaways for Talent Acquisition Leaders
- Reducing time to hire by even five to ten days can have a significant impact on offer acceptance rates and vacancy costs in competitive talent markets.
- Automated, stage-based candidate communications are one of the most cost-effective ways to improve candidate experience at scale without adding headcount to the recruiting team.
- Global organizations that standardize recruiting processes on a single platform gain both efficiency and the ability to report meaningfully on hiring performance across all geographies.
- A well-implemented ATS is not just an operational tool — it is a strategic asset that directly supports employer brand and business growth.
Conclusion
We Are Social's experience with Workable is a compelling case study in what modern, data-driven talent acquisition looks like when it is executed well. By committing to a unified platform, embracing automation, and prioritizing both speed and candidate experience, the agency has built a recruiting operation that is not only more efficient but genuinely more competitive. For any organization navigating the complexities of global hiring across diverse disciplines, the lessons from We Are Social's journey with Workable offer a clear and actionable blueprint for success.