XREF

COUNTRY AUSTRALIA
PEOPLE INVOLVED 3
INDUSTRY HR

Introduction

XREF is an Australian company committed to pioneering positive change in the industries of HR and recruitment. They believe that behind every good hire, there must be a robust and reliable reference check, that when done right, ensures the right people are in the right roles at the right time.

XREF software solution answers this call by making reference checking simple and reducing time-to-hire for businesses across the globe. ASPER BROTHERS proudly contributed to helping this tool gain grounds with new integrations. Take a look at how did it go!

Idea

The idea behind XREF is simple, yet very bright. Firstly, the potential employer sends a reference request to the candidate undergoing the recruitment process using a dedicated online platform. Then, references provide feedback via secure, mobile-friendly questionnaire. When that’s completed, the employer receives a report with a detailed analysis of the feedback.

One of the giants of recruitment industry – Greenhouse, providing technology, resources and expertise to make every company a great hiring – acknowledged the value behind the features of XREF and decided to integrate it within their solution. And here’s where our story begins!

Challenge

The big challenge both companies faced was to integrate their solutions in a way that provides all the functionalities with existing APIs, with the goal to facilitate and accelerate the recruitment process.

XREF trusted ASPER BROTHERS with the task of understanding how both Greenhouse and XREF solutions work, and then to create a tool that would translate different APIs and create a two-way communication.

The hardest task was to establish a professional way of cooperation, bearing in mind one team was in Poland, whereas another was in Australia. Both teams were working completely remotely, never met face to face and were divided with one of the biggest time zones differences on Earth! Challenging, isn’t it?

Solution and the process of collaboration

The backbone of every IT project is great communication, and that’s where we started. We adopted our working hours to XREF’s time zone, and agreed a call at least twice a week to ensure we have the finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the backlog.

After agreeing on communication, we meticulously went through extensive documentation provided by XREF. In dribs and drabs we’ve build an understanding of both the domain and the way of working of both solutions we were to integrate. Access to a test version of the app only propelled the work.

Another sound decision was to really understand the goal of the integration and the way both APIs worked, so we invested significant amount of time and resources to mitigate any possible risks in the project – especially being mindful of the fact, that before ASPER BROTHERS another software house did not rise to this challenge.

The main technology in this project was Python and its Django framework, backed up by Docker. Nevertheless, we had to work within certain technological limitations, which forced us to constantly search for different solutions that would be able to combine both APIs.

Results

As a result, the referents can now be added in the system with as little effort as just one mouse click. Thanks to that, the recruiters can decide not to be involved in the process of collecting references, and after sending an email with a request to fill in the questionnaire, are only observing the final results in the form of a report and analytics.

More often than not time zone difference can be a real killer for the IT project. This work proved differently, and we managed to maintain a clear and regular communication despite the miles and hours dividing team members. The outcome of this cooperation is now being used on daily basis around the globe, making recruitment process faster, nimbler and easier. And since both parties were highly satisfied with the process and the results, the cooperation continues and currently tackles new, exciting IT challenges!