We talked to a recruitment agency Sourced. Michael Doran, their managing partner, shared with us his priorities and the secrets of optimizing time in the team.

Recruiting requires accuracy, transparency, and punctuality, but also the speed of your mind is important too because recruiting means high competition in which you win those who react faster. But in a situation of a wealth of information, it is easy to miss important details. 

Sourced was developed to revolutionize recruiting services. They work as an extension of our client’s team handling any aspect of recruiting they might need help with.

Michael explains, “We developed our company out of frustration with a lack of change in recruiting. On the technology side, there is a myriad of tools, databases, and extensions available that range in their ability to actually get hires (and can often be quite pricey).”

He adds, “On the services side, there had been very little innovation in the market since the 90s. We felt that the time had come for something better. And here we are to disrupt the traditional contingency and retained recruiting marketplace.”

There are lots of growing companies that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in agency fees for just a small handful of hires.

“We saw the opportunity to help companies save up to 80% of those fees, while also benefiting from improvements in technology,” Michael tells us, “Our services deliver long term network effects (which means our work can still produce results months after we have stopped working with a client).”

Sourced values the time and capabilities of its customers and offers flexibility. Michael explains, “We know that sometimes you need heavy recruiting support, and other times you don’t. Our clients can turn us on and off on a month-to-month basis.”

The Sourced team are big fans of Slack, and they use Zoom daily as well. “I want to run a lean organization that has a minimum of micromanagement, and Standuply turned out as a great addition,” Michael says, “I wanted to be able to have people provide updates on what they have worked on with a minimum of fuss, and for it to be integrated into Slack to update the whole team in a shared channel.”

Sourced is headquartered in the Bay Area and also has a base of operations down in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But the team is completely remote, including nine distributed employees across the US and Argentina. 

Michael met Standuply before working at Sourced while working with another client. And finally, when the Sourced team started to grow, and there was a need for a project management tool in Sourced, the choice was obvious. 

“I just wanted to be able to have people provide updates on what they have worked on with a minimum of fuss.“

Michael Doran
Managing partner at Sourced

As the team grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to control everyone’s involvement and awareness of work. Michael confirms, “I wanted to include everyone in the updates and decided that the price was in alignment with my needs for the tool.”

Michael adds, “We also focus on helping technology startups, and so we want to use tools created by small companies and to support their growth as well.”

For effective project management, the Sourced team uses only a few Standuply features. Michael told us which ones exactly: 

• Weekly Standup Report 

It’s a classic standup report we have and the main Standuply feature.

• 360 Degree Feedback

Michael says, “I appreciate the ability to build in quarterly 360 degree reports for my team, and know that they are enabled and will run in the background when they are supposed to.”

• Pop reports.

“We also use manual launches of these reports as soon as we need them,” Michael says.

“We also have Google Analytics integrated so it adds stats about our website to our weekly standup reports as well!” he adds.

In recruiting and headcount planning, unobtrusiveness and caution are essential not only for hiring people but also for HR teamwork organization.

Michael shares, “Standuply is a perfect communication tool, and a good way to check in with my coworkers without being too obtrusive. This is why I love functionality like typing/polling into a channel to create a quick poll to gather the mood of the team without annoying questions.”

Standuply turned out as a great tool to set in the background and have it run to help you keep your business on track, enable better communication between your team, and help reduce micromanagement. 

“We see Standuply as a product that someone somewhere wanted and could not find, and so they went out and built it themselves“

Michael Doran
Managing partner at Sourced

Almost every team working with Standuply has its own bargaining chip on how to use the tool for various purposes most effectively. Michael has already worked with Standuply on two projects, and as an experienced user shared his advice with those who are just getting acquainted with us.

He believes that it’s especially important to choose the right frequency and due time, to find a ‘middle ground’ for the team. He advises getting started with a weekly or bi-weekly standup poll and make sure you share the results with your team.

Michael explains, “When I first started using it, I only had one employee, and I thought he could see the results. I found out months later that he did not see any of my updates. So make sure you allow your team to see everyone’s updates (depending on size). It gives everyone a nice viewpoint on what is happening at the company.”

Michael shares, “When my team grew, I started doing the polls 3x a week, and that seemed a bit excessive to the team. I dropped it to once a week, and also changed the due time. So considering the amount of time that the team has to complete the poll, this has helped increase engagement.”

“Using Standuply is a new way of doing regular things“

Michael Doran
Managing partner at Sourced

It’s not really easy to accustom your remote employees to certain daily rules. Reporting is a regular process that will be of benefit only when it becomes a habit.

Michael is sure: “Using Standuply is a new way of doing regular things. And as we grow, I am more focused on getting everyone to develop the habit of completing the reports.”

Thanks to Standuply, the Sourced team has learned to save a lot of time and not lose its productivity. The team remains updated and fully involved in the work.