How Vanta is Building a Sophisticated Recruiting Operation with Ashby

Vanta is a security compliance business on a mission to secure the internet. In a hypergrowth phase of hiring up to 150 new employees per quarter, Vanta knew an investment in a nimble recruiting tech stack that allowed their team to hire both quickly and thoughtfully was critical. Consolidating four point solutions into Ashby All-in-One was a key step towards operational efficiency and hiring excellence.

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Problem: Stagnant Stitching of Multiple Systems 

Even in the earliest days of Vanta, the team at large — from the CEO to everyone on recruiting — was committed to a thorough and sophisticated talent process. Core pillars such as robust structured interviewing and interview plans were adopted early. But as the team grew, new hiring locations were being added, and new role types were being scoped… a number of blockers began to emerge with their legacy recruiting stack. 

Switching between multiple systems, including a stagnant ATS, made it difficult for the team to add new variables to their recruiting process when there were already so many to juggle. 

“I was in [Legacy ATS] for nine years. It looked very similar nine years later and didn’t feel like there were substantial or impactful additions or iterations in the product.” — Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

A number of triggers across the team signaled there was a need for a new ATS, from manual data pulling to lacking flexibility in how the system could be used to the constant context switching just to get one new role through the end-to-end hiring process. In shopping options, Vanta Chief People and Legal Officer Ari Shahdadi wanted to adopt a tool that was innovating on the product and enabled the team to be strategic drivers of the business.

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Solution: Customization at Every Step of the Recruiting Process

After hearing positive reviews from his own network, Ari encouraged the team to migrate from using Ashby Analytics as one of four point solutions to Ashby All-in-One for their end-to-end recruiting stack. Previous ATS’s Liz has worked with made work such as customizing data collection, expanding to a new location, or making simple adjustments in the hiring process nearly impossible. 

A task as foundational as adjusting job descriptions for the compensation requirements of a specific region required jumping through multiple hoops, an exciting step now on the roadmap to implement. With a goal as ambitious as 100+ new hires a quarter, the team needed a system that could move at their pace. 

“We can do it all with Ashby. Without switching and punting candidates between four different tools, we can now hire for the diversity of the roles we’re opening with a far more simplified recruiter experience. This allows us to become more specialized in our recruiting and build trust in our team without any of the previous friction in operations.”

— Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

Custom Surveys

This love for customization in Ashby extends to both Candidate Experience Surveys and Hiring Manager Experience Surveys, both of which Vanta uses to continuously improve their recruiting efforts and uplevel the team. 

“One thing that’s unique about Ashby surveys is how, again, everything is customizable. I like being able to edit the questions, remove a question, add another open text field, and ultimately capture the things we care about as an organization. We then cut the data by department and by recruiter, and pull out themes based on both the metrics and qualitative inputs. We use the candidate experience feedback to drive OKRs quarter over quarter and incorporate hiring manager feedback into recruiter quarterly performances.”

— Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

One tangible example Liz shares was from the Candidate Experience Surveys. After the team heard qualitative feedback around how well prepared candidates felt for an interview, an OKR was spun up around standard practices for pre-interview candidate prep briefs. Next quarter, the Vanta team will be able to compare changes in feedback around preparation from before and after this training was implemented. 

Custom Openings

With an already elevated approach to headcount management, using Openings in Ashby unlocked headcount reporting capabilities that Liz has struggled to access at every organization she’s worked at — especially when hiring over 100 people a quarter. Before Ashby, Vanta was relying on manual inputs from recruiters weekly. This led to data entry errors and hours of wasted time recruiters could be spending on more strategic work. 

“The customization with Openings (such as custom fields), my ability to pull everything into Google sheets, and my ability to report on progress has made Openings our source of truth. It has allowed us to build a headcount management process that’s trusted and reliable. Everyone can see what headcount we have, what’s been approved, what’s been filled, and it’s all automated which is really nice.”

— Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

Custom Reporting

Starting as an Ashby Analytics customer before migrating fully to Ashby, Vanta was able to supercharge their reporting abilities once all steps of the recruiting process were connected through a single platform. Everyone across recruiting and leadership has visibility into the custom reports built for their needs, which are shared through Ashby alerts through both email and Slack. 

“We can be creative to support our reporting goals in Ashby. The reporting is both broad and filterable; it’s nimble but self-service. I can put a dashboard in front of a recruiter and show 15 different cuts they can make for their department alone and get everything needed.”

— Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

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Impact: A Product that Grows with You

Fueling all the custom functionality is Ashby’s product velocity. For Liz and Ari, the unique combination of product development and prompt response rate of the Customer Success team has led to a pleasantly surprising relationship. 

“I feel heard as a partner. I know you’re not building based on my feedback alone, but sometimes it feels like that! I share a pain point, and then a few months later it’s solved. It’s quite different from my experience with other ATSs. From the consistent follow up to the in-depth conversations, it feels like the product is developing with us. I can highly recommend it to my network and tell people, it will evolve with you.”

— Liz Wagner, Talent Operations & Programs at Vanta

Ready to evolve your recruiting strategy with Ashby? Request a demo today.