www.compasspointsconsulting.com

Pulse SystemsDevelopment team doubles in size in 6 months enabling 37% revenue gains

Pulse Systems, Inc. is a top 100 healthcare technology company in the United States (Healthcare Informatics

100), and a subsidiary of Cegedim, a 1B+ French company. Pulse has 350 employees spread across three

geographic locations in the United States and Canada. The company provides Practice Management (PM), Electronic Health Record (EHR), and Revenue Cycle

Management (RCM) to small-to-medium sized outpatient group medical practices. Pulse was expanding its

industry presence through aggressive growth.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Pulse was experiencing strong growth as US healthcare providers adopted

EHR/PM/RCM systems to comply with healthcare regulations. In addition,

they modernized their outdated client-server technology with a cloud-based

Saas platform implementing modern development tools (e.g., Java, Javascript,

Angular). The Development team would quickly need to double in size across

three geographic locations two in the Midwest, United States, the other in

Ontario, Canada.

Ch

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CHALLENGES

The internal HR department was overwhelmed by the pace of growth,

copious new positions, and significant acceleration of hiring volume. Company

leadership, directors and managers were stretched thin with the increasing

demands for time spent on hiring activities (resume screening, interviewing,

making decisions) while delivering the next iteration of their Saas product(s).

The consequences of not meeting the growth challenge would be dire Pulse’s

competitive position in the Saas marketplace and truncate their chances to

scale to the next level in their quest to serve their customers.

Identifying qualified Software Engineers was a specific challenge because of the

high demand and low supply of Developers as well as the need for Engineers

with specific technical skills. Some of the specific technologies required that we

fulfilled: Java, Javascript, Python, Angular, CSS, Spring MVC, HTML5, .NET/C#,

HL7, Web API integrations, SQL Server, SSIS, SSRS, Postgres, Hive, Pig, Hadoop,

Agile/Scrum, UI/UX, Selenium, HIPPA. Identifying qualified Saas sales people was

another challenge because of the need to identify candidates with EHR/PM/RCM

sales experience and success in developing new business in a multi-state territory.

COMPASSPOINTS

To fulfill the hiring goals of the company, CompassPoints worked in partnership with

the company’s leadership and HR division. We built a multi-channel marketing strategy

to reach appropriate candidates from diverse sources including recent graduates,

competitors in the healthcare IT marketplace, as well as peripherally related candidates

(e.g., nurses with technical acumen). Initially, we searched locally and regionally. Then

we searched nationally and internationally for professionals with the right skills who

were willing to relocate. Geographically, we identified a diverse group of candidates

who were hired from the US, Canada, Europe, India and Nepal.

The goal of our systematic, in-depth screening of candidates was to do the time-intensive work

to save Pulse’s leadership & Hiring managers time for mission-critical tasks. We conducted

behavioral and competency based interviews, and for technical candidates, online testing of

programming knowledge/ skills. The standardized technical testing allowed us to quickly rule-

out unqualified candidates and move rapidly to interview technical professionals to assess

their goodness of fit for the opportunity, role & culture of the company. Reference checks and

background checks were also conducted for short-listed candidates.

For each opening, we typically screened between 30 to 50 candidates; only the most qualified

were selected for phone interviews. The initial phase of screening resulted in a candidate

acceptance rate of 23%. The accepted candidates were further vetted by CompassPoints using

an internal tool which mapped qualifications to job specifications generating a systematic

ranking of the remaining candidates. Phone and video interviewing resulted in the best fit

candidates. For every 50 candidates screened, 4 were submitted to Pulse for their internal

interview process. For each opening, an average of 4.2 candidates were submitted to result in

1 successful hire. Because we consistently communicated, aligned and pre-closed candidates,

offers of employment by Pulse were accepted by our candidates 94% of the time.

To understand what was important from leadership’s perspective for each hire, we

developed and managed a structured communication process with company hiring

authorities including the CTO, CEO, VP of Sales, VP of Software Engineering. Collaborative,

recursive communication allowed us to act as a business partner empowering efficient and

adaptive hiring of talented professionals.

PROCESS & SOLUTIONS

BEST

BEST

Candidates ruled-out during the

presubmission screening

process: 92%

Applicants to Initial Interview

Ratio: 8%

Yield Ratio Submission to

Hire: 4.2:1.Offers

Accepted Conversation

Rate: 94%

RESULTS

RECRUITING METRICS

Over the course of 12 months, we enabled Pulse with 15 new employees for different types of roles including leadership positions such as HR Director and Product Manager, and mid-level roles such as Project Managers. 92% of candidates were ruled-out during our rigorous presubmission screening process—creating huge time savings for Pulse’s internal staff. We sourced half of the new Development team members including Lead Software Engineer, several Java Engineers, and multiple Quality Assurance Engineers. We also provided 3 EHR/PM software sales executives as the companies national sales force grew by 40%. During our partnership, the company experienced 37% revenue growth (year-over-year), and were named a top Ambulatory vendor in RCM services by KLAS. Pulse’s development team doubled in size over the 6 month period of the engagement.

ENDORSEMENTS

“Andrew facilitated our companies growth by referring a diverse, talented group of Software

Engineers. I strongly recommend CompassPoints Consulting to companies seeking to hire new talent.”

Tim Mills, Vice-President of Software Engineering

Pulse Systems

“What sets Andrew apart is his willingness to engage, listen carefully and ask good questions to

understand the specific requirements for revenue-generating positions. Andrew was relentless

in helping to build a high quality, high performing sales team. I strongly recommend him to any

organization striving to grow their sales or technical team(s).”

Jim Roytek, Vice-President of Sales

Pulse Systems

GET STARTED

The first step: Let’s schedule an exploratory discovery to discuss your strategic business goals, talent requirements and hiring processes/timelines.

Contact us at (919) 914-0483or andrew@compasspointsconsulting.com