cord
Hiring and increasing our response rate to over 50%.
"cord is our number one source of qualified Engineers"
54%
positive response rate from Engineers1
PHP Engineer hirecord usage
1 direct hire
30 people sourced
3 positions
1 user
New York County
About smarTours
Founded in 1996, smarTours’ mission has been to enable amazing trips around the world for their customers. They operate group tours to international destinations at competitive prices making them accessible to a wide audience. While smarTours has been operating as a very successful business for over 26 years, they were affected by the global pandemic as all travel was shut down worldwide. During this time, smarTours has taken the opportunity to rebuild the company with a technology focus from the ground up, operating much more like a new startup and with a brand new team.
View websiteView cord profileOur Goal
We joined cord to combat the low response rates and irrelevant applications we were getting from Linkedin and job boards.
Our Situation
Lots for little
Before using cord, we tried traditional hiring methods such as posting to job boards and Linkedin, but we weren’t getting the results we wanted. We got lots of people applying to our positions, but the people that applied either didn’t read the job description and incorrectly applied, or they weren’t necessarily a good fit. We were bombarded but with little to show for it. From the outbound messages we sent, the response rate we got was low. We needed a tool that would help us find a speak to quality candidates that matched our hiring requirements.
Using cord
The job search, flipped
When I was first introduced to cord, it looked like it had flipped the job search on its head. When we joined, I realised the full extent of how different it was. Immediately we were set up with streams of candidates that fitted the requirements we had, and I was able to fine-tune who appeared depending on variables like primary and secondary technical skills, salary expectations, and remote working preferences. Once I had my stream set up, it was up to me to decide whether people were a good fit, messaging or hiding people as required. It felt like I was sourcing from own network, except my network was now huge.
Rising responses
When I’ve found someone I think is a good fit for our roles, I can reach out using a templated message which includes an automated follow-up, in just a few clicks. Because Engineers on cord are actively looking for work and there’s already a match on skills and salary, the response rate to our outbound messaging on cord is much higher than on Linkedin, over 50% of the people I message respond back positively. To add to this, the IM system makes conversations much more casual, like I’m reaching out to people I already know.
Fair pricing
We hired for our PHP developer position, and we didn’t have to worry about hiring fees. Because of cord’s flat monthly fee, we had no unexpected costs associated to making a hire, and with the price being reasonable, we can leave our cord subscription running month-to-month. Despite cord being a paid tool, it’s much more effective than any free alternatives, as we can get the results we want, rather than using a lot of time and effort for little return.