How Solve’s RPO powered a tech transformation with 100+ critical hires for UTS

100+ critical hires into niche tech roles and specialist areas
94% offer acceptance rate
98% second interview-to-offer conversion
44% female hires (versus a baseline of 24% female representation)

About UTS
When UTS (University of Technology Sydney), one of Australia’s leading universities, kicked off a large-scale IT transformation in 2024, they faced high growth targets and a period of major change. To deliver on this business-critical hiring project, they needed a trusted technology recruitment expert and RPO provider by their side. That’s where Solve came in.
The Challenge
As UTS modernised their IT operating model to become a more agile, data-led organisation, they needed to build out an entirely new tech org structure from scratch.
With steep hiring targets and limited internal capacity, the pressure was on! They needed a partner to help solve several key challenges:
- A 29 week window to fill up to 80-130 permanent roles.
- A strong focus on hard-to-fill tech roles requiring deep industry expertise and strategic headhunting.
- An internal TA function with no capacity – the whole project needed to be outsourced to a trusted partner.
- Doubling female representation among the IT workforce.
- In addition to filling roles, they needed help implementing agile ways of working and improving recruitment operations.
The Solution:
After a competitive tender process, UTS selected Solve as their partner of choice for a 7-month RPO engagement to lead end-to-end hiring across their newly structured IT function.
Our delivery model was built for flexibility and scale, with experienced TA Partners bringing the deep industry expertise needed to deliver a first-class service experience, hiring efficiency and standout candidate quality. When hiring demand surged, we moved fast – doubling our team from two to four expert TA partners almost overnight.
But we didn’t stop there. UTS gained access to Solve’s full suite of expertise and infrastructure – from interactive real-time dashboards built by our Data & Reporting Analyst, to deep marketing mapping and proactive talent pooling driven by our specialist Sourcing Hub.
Beyond simply filling roles, Solve acted as a strategic extension of the UTS People & Culture team, uplifting recruitment capability and improving operations to support long-term outcomes.
Here’s what we delivered:
- Designed and implemented an agile-aligned recruitment project plan.
- Rapidly deployed an ATS to streamline advertising, internal applications, and reporting across the project.
- Tailored job templates, branded communications, and candidate touch points to UTS’s tone of voice to attract top talent for the long-term, including increasing the proportion of female candidates.
- Implemented automated reference checking technology and integrated it with the ATS to efficiently and securely conduct candidate checks,streamlining the process and significantly cutting down the time burden of gathering references.
- Provided hiring leaders with detailed market insights and a real-time view of hiring performance data to inform more strategic, inclusive decisions.
- Delivered full compliance and governance support throughout the project.
The Results:
- 100+ critical hires into niche tech roles and specialist areas, including cloud, infrastructure, solution architecture, engineering and agile enablement.
- Achieved stand-out results with a 94% offer acceptance rate.
- 98% second interview-to-offer conversion.
- 44% female hires (versus a baseline of 24% female representation).
- Over 90% of roles had 50:50 gender-balanced shortlists.
- Saved UTS hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to alternative models.
Throughout our engagement Solve demonstrated the value of a strategic RPO partnership during a period of large-scale transformation,helping UTS to scale and build a strong, future-ready team to support their continued growth.
Got a big transformation project on the horizon? Need help scaling your team? Hiring pressure mounting?
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