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?

Let’s talk. We can help you solve it. Get in touch with our experts via the contact form below!

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