Origin Materials is a carbon-negative materials company that turns carbon into useful materials without the need for fossil emissions, making it much cleaner for the environment. The bio-based materials derived create everyday products that include packaging, textiles, construction materials, toys, and more.
We recently spoke with Amanda Medina, Senior HR Manager at Origin for the US and Canada. She’s located at their headquarters in West Sacramento, California, and she goes way back with the company, and just celebrated nine years there.
Her current primary focus is on recruiting because Origin is growing so fast and is opening its first commercial plant in Ontario, Canada, which should be up and running end of this year. At the beginning of 2023, it will open a second commercial plant, which will be even bigger than the first, in Louisiana, US.
To hire all the right people, Amanda needed the right tool. That’s where Recruitee came into play.
Finding a solution to fit Origin’s growing hiring needs
Pre-2019, Origin’s hiring was elementary, there were no formal processes. Hiring was tracked via email, and folders were used to track candidates.
As the team was building out their website and careers site, they realized they needed a better way to connect jobs they were hiring for. That’s when someone who had worked with Recruitee before spoke up and suggested the ATS. As Amanda and the team were doing their due diligence, Recruitee really stuck out from the crowd.
It was the most user-friendly and easy tool. We love that about Recruitee and still do. It did the basics of what we needed without being too complicated. It also allowed us to expand into what we're using it for today.
Back then, Origin had even fewer resources than it does now. Getting started using the tool as quickly as possible was their main goal, and Recruitee has the least amount of hurdles compared to other tools.
A single source of hiring truth
In the beginning, Amanda and the team were taking care of hiring, “We didn't even really have hiring managers at the time.” It was just a bunch of people trying to fill roles or suggest people for roles as quickly as possible.
The main goal with Recruitee was to have a single source of truth for all candidate information that everyone had access to. To speed up the hiring process, it was imperative to have all jobs living on their careers site, which is a breeze with Recruitee.
Origin also wanted to bring more human interaction into the hiring process.
With Recruitee, it feels like I'm really talking to the candidates, even if we just use the email function. I feel I have a personal connection with them.
How collaborative hiring helped Origin hire faster
Last spring, Origin’s headquarters had 30 employees, by now, they are up to over 150 employees, spread all across the US. The Ontario office alone, where a lot of operators work and the future site of a manufacturing plant, grew from 2 to over 30 employees over the past year.
To make the onboarding process as easy as possible, Amanda conducts a Recruitee training for all new hires and hiring managers who will be using the tool. Mind you, these hiring managers are mostly scientists and engineers who are constantly thinking and asking questions.
It's actually remarkable how there really aren't that many questions after people start using the system. I cannot highlight enough how easy it is for anyone to use Recruitee.
When it comes to collaborative hiring, Origin has got it down pat. The admins and hiring managers love the notes section, being able to tag each other and leave quick evaluations on a candidate profile. That way, everyone is in the loop, and they can make the hiring decisions a group effort.
What’s next for Origin and Recruitee?
Now, over three years later, Origin’s processes in Recruitee have changed, and there are plans for further improvement in the near future.
With 2023 on the horizon, Origin has some big plans. Not only is it going to open two new manufacturing plants in North America, but it is also going to implement a new HRIS system to make the employee lifecycle process even more seamless.
When it comes to hiring, the main focus is ensuring that the two new manufacturing plants are up and running on time. The only way to do that is to be able to hire the right people as quickly as possible. Recruitee is key to helping Origin with this task.
When Origin started with Recruitee, it had 25 employees. Now it is at around 200 with the hopes of growing to 500 in the next few years. All to help them grow their mission.
As we’ve grown over the past few years, we've noticed that we’re outgrown a lot of our systems, but not Recruitee.
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