Case Study: Building a Flexible Talent Acquisition Function at Certn
About Certn:
Certn is a global technology company providing identity verification and background screening solutions to organizations worldwide. Through innovative technology and automation, Certn helps businesses streamline compliance, reduce risk, and make confident hiring decisions at scale.
116
Hires in one year
24.5
Average time to hire
1
Complete TA function
The challenge
At the start of the engagement, Certn’s hiring needs were relatively modest and inconsistent, often fluctuating between a small number of open roles and much higher volumes depending on business priorities. Hiring a full time internal recruiter did not make sense financially, and the internal People and Culture team did not have the bandwidth to support ongoing recruitment demands.
There was a clear objective to enable a high performing talent acquisition function that felt embedded and aligned with the business, while allowing leadership to delegate execution and remain focused on strategic priorities. Hiring plans often shifted with very little notice, reflecting the fast paced nature of a growing technology business.
What began as an integrated recruitment model needed to evolve quickly as Certn’s hiring plans changed. Over the course of the year, hiring scaled far beyond initial expectations, requiring a solution that could flex rapidly to support both pace and complexity.
Key challenges
Managing highly variable hiring demand, ranging from small numbers of roles to large scale hiring waves
Supporting both highly technical roles and high volume hiring with very different skill requirements
Meeting aggressive, deadline driven hiring timelines
Scaling recruitment across multiple geographies and time zones
Maintaining a consistent, high quality candidate experience at speed
“I didn’t expect how fast they’d feel like ours. They learned our business, built genuine trust with our hiring managers, and created a TA function that could flex with us — 30 hires one quarter, a full dial-back the next, without skipping a beat. You rarely get senior strategic thinking and day-to-day execution from the same team. We did. We started the year knowing exits were coming. When I shared what we were up against, HighlightTA didn’t wait to be asked twice. They built out an outplacement program that was more thoughtful and more impactful than anything I’ve seen in my career. We could do right by our people on the way out — and that mattered.”
The delivery
HighlightTA partnered closely with Certn to evolve from an integrated recruitment model into a fully embedded talent acquisition function.
A flexible talent acquisition model
The engagement began with integrated recruitment support and expanded into a full TA function as hiring demand increased. This allowed Certn to access the right recruitment expertise at the right time, without committing to permanent headcount that could become misaligned as demand fluctuated.
Aligning expertise to hiring needs
Recruiters with experience across engineering, technical hiring, and high volume recruitment were aligned to Certn’s needs as they evolved. This ensured that highly specialised roles and large hiring waves were supported by people with the right skill sets.
End to end recruitment ownership
HighlightTA operated fully within Certn’s systems, including Ashby, using Certn email addresses and workflows to ensure a seamless internal experience. The team supported the full recruitment lifecycle, from role discovery and interview design through to offer management and onboarding coordination.
Operational integration
Weekly touch points with Certn’s People and Culture team ensured alignment on priorities, blockers, and hiring forecasts. Proactive improvements were made across job descriptions, compliance, automations, and candidate communication to support consistency and scale.
Throughout the engagement, HighlightTA provided both strategic and executional support. Leadership had access to senior level guidance to think through workforce planning, prioritisation, and hiring strategy, while dedicated recruiters delivered day to day execution across all role types. This combination allowed Certn to think big picture while still moving quickly on immediate hiring needs.
As hiring demand shifted, including periods of intensive engineering hiring and high volume recruitment, the model flexed accordingly. HighlightTA adjusted resourcing quickly to meet Certn’s needs while maintaining momentum and delivery standards.
The impact
Over the course of the year, HighlightTA supported Certn in making 116 hires across a wide range of roles, from entry level background screening analysts through to senior technical, product, and leadership positions. The average time to hire across all roles was 24.5 days, despite significant variation in role complexity and hiring volume.
Hiring managers felt the immediate impact through faster hiring, reduced pressure, and consistent support regardless of workload. Leadership gained a dependable talent partner they could trust to both advise at a strategic level and execute at pace. This confidence allowed leaders to stay focused on the business, knowing hiring could flex quickly and reliably as priorities changed.
Beyond outcomes, the partnership itself became a key driver of success. HighlightTA was not experienced as an external vendor, but as a fully embedded extension of the Certn team. Ownership was shared, communication was seamless, and hiring operated as a true collaboration rather than a handoff. This one team dynamic removed friction from the process, accelerated decision making, and created the trust required to scale hiring as Certn’s needs evolved.
What began as an integrated recruitment model evolved into a full talent acquisition function, providing Certn with a scalable, end to end hiring solution capable of supporting global growth, high volume hiring, and highly specialised recruitment.
“When we talk about HighlightTA internally, it’s never as an outsourced firm. They’re fully embedded in our team. They’ve taken real lift off our plates, owned the talent acquisition process end to end, pivoted quickly as our needs changed, and communicated clearly with stakeholders.
What I appreciate most is how seamless the partnership feels. No friction. Just a team that understands our needs, runs with them, and delivers.”
“HighlightTA is a terrific partner who we consider to be an extension of our internal P&C team. We count on them to manage the entire TA process for us and work together effectively and efficiently. They make an effort to really understand our business, have quickly pivoted to support our needs, are professional, organized and track essential TA data so we can make informed decisions. I truly appreciate their partnership.”