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County lays out ESA transformation metrics and strategies to shorten hiring timelines
Summary
The Employee Services Agency reported higher applicant yields and a first‑time sub‑100‑day average time‑to‑hire, described outreach and digital strategies, and outlined next steps to improve applicant experience and reduce the department‑level portion of hiring time.
David Huebner, director of the Employee Services Agency, presented the transformation work focused on the attract and recruit phase. Huebner said the county’s average applications per recruitment rose to 63.4 (a 50% increase since 2020) following expanded in‑person outreach—58 events in 2025—and broader digital engagement. He also described classification and compensation work and a pilot tool called "Holly" intended to modernize job design and comparability.
On time‑to‑hire, the agency broke the process into two stages: requisition→referral (about 87 days) and referral→start date (about 45 days), yielding an average time‑to‑hire of about 99 days—reported as the first time under 100 days in five years. Huebner and committee members identified the department‑level interview and scheduling process as a major driver of delay and discussed potential centralization and standardized interview question banks to accelerate referral→start timelines.
Supervisors stressed applicant experience and asked ESA to produce applicant‑level metrics and user‑experience surveys. ESA staff acknowledged payroll‑period constraints and applicant notice periods also affect start dates. The committee voted to receive the report and asked ESA to include a pros‑and‑cons comparison of centralized versus decentralized interview models in future reports.
