How Form Energy Scaled Local Hiring with Hiring Events in Ashby

At Form Energy, an energy storage startup focused on developing and manufacturing large-scale batteries, scaling from research and development to full-scale manufacturing presented some expected new and exciting challenges — specifically around high volume hiring. Transitioning from hiring engineers and technology professionals to hiring hundreds of local manufacturers required a strategic pivot in their hiring approach. Ashby’s All-in-One solution played a pivotal role in this transition.

Problem: Managing High-Volume Hiring for Manufacturing Roles

Form Energy began with traditional targeted recruiting efforts. As they expanded their operations, particularly with the opening of a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Weirton, West Virginia, the company needed to transition to high-volume hiring. The challenge was sourcing and hiring hundreds of manufacturing workers locally — in a community that had previously been reliant on steel manufacturing jobs. 

“We had to hire hundreds of local manufacturers to work at our new factory, something we hadn’t done before in this region. We had been hiring in small batches — 10 or 12 people at a time to get the new facility off the ground — but as we grew, we realized we needed to rapidly do larger volume, bulk hiring to meet our production timelines.”

— Diana Bacallao, Recruiting Coordinator 

Unlike typical tech sector hiring, traditional online sourcing methods were less effective for this type of role.

“The candidates for our factory roles are not using LinkedIn or online job boards as often as our tech recruits. We needed something more boots to the ground, like QR codes, posters in town, and local events. So, we decided to host a series of hiring events at the local community center.”

 — Diana Bacallao, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

Solution: Leveraging Ashby’s Events Functionality for Local Hiring

In building out Ashby’s Hiring Events functionality, we were delighted to partner with Form Energy as an early access customer. Members of our team flew from California to Weirton, WV for Form Energy’s in-person hiring events, allowing the Form team to meet and screen candidates in person and allowing us to see Hiring Events firsthand in action. (You can even spot our CEO Benji and engineer Max signing people in at their event on WTOV9 Fox News).

“When we would post a factory role online we’d get a lot of applicants but our traditional interview format wasn’t conducive to meeting folks in person as quickly as we needed to. We hoped to pivot to a simple, quick, and efficient in-person process for local candidates to get to know us.  Our first event had over 400 people. The line wrapped around the building before the event started.”

 — Diana Bacallao, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

Given that Form Energy was already using Ashby to hire technical talent, the talent team sought an ATS that could easily house both recruiting processes — hiring online talent and local manufacturing talent — in one tool. Since Form’s recruiters work across both verticals, having one seamless tool provided valuable in a number of ways:

• Managing and Reporting on Events
• Sourcing Future Hires
• Centralized Candidate Profiles

Managing and Reporting on Events

Prior to Ashby, recruiters were using Google Forms, which was not scalable for the volume of hiring the team was forecasting. With Ashby, the team was able to manage RSVPs, facilitate feedback, organize and manage events, and streamline communication directly in the platform.

“The tagging feature is super helpful. We could easily track candidates by event and pull reports on their qualifications. It saved us days, if not weeks, of manual work. Even simple things such as tagging a candidate as ‘Hiring Event 1, Hiring Event 2,’ we could easily see "did this person come to our hiring events and then get hired later on?”

— Jess Taylor, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

Centralized Candidate Profiles

With their previous tooling, the Form Energy talent team was stuck manually logging information into candidate profiles. 

“I was manually scanning in paper resumes prior to the event platform. One of the best things about Ashby is how it’s a one stop shop. We can do everything in one place, including having the ability to report on what we learned in our hiring events, which was hugely helpful and provided us with data we could reference easily at a later date."

 — Diana Bacallao, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

Sourcing Future Hires

While Form Energy hosted their first local events to fill immediate open roles, word had already spread across town that 750 jobs would eventually open up. A secondary goal of using Ashby was building a long-term pipeline the team could source from as more roles open towards that ultimate 750. 

“One of the biggest benefits was being able to tap into the pipeline we built from these initial hiring events. When we need to re-engage candidates, it is as simple as sending out a bulk email from Ashby. With everything stored in one place, we are able to quickly fill these roles as they open up. We can see who we’ve already had a touch point with at past events, what the conversations were, and review feedback already included in the system. With our presence established in the community, we can re-engage candidates and send offers out. For example, in August of 2024 we hired around 15 folks from the hiring event in February.”  

— Jess Taylor, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

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Impact: A Community-Centric Recruitment Process That Scales

From hosting the welcoming page for event registration with the opportunity to upload a resume to being able to bulk email candidates updates regarding the event to post-event reporting, Ashby ultimately helps Form Energy manage:

• high-volume hiring efficiently
• building a strong community connection
• providing real insights because of analytics in Ashby

“Without Ashby, we just wouldn’t be able to efficiently process this volume of candidates. With Ashby, we are able to streamline a highly manual process into something meaningful for both the company and the community. Benji and Max would know, they get to see it all in person!” 

— Diana Bacallao, Recruiting Coordinator at Form Energy

Curious to try Ashby’s Hiring Events functionality? Schedule a demo today.