How DUSA hires at scale for the new academic year with Employment Hero’s SmartMatch

The challenge

Hiring at scale will keep any recruiting team on their toes, and in certain sectors, hiring peaks are naturally part of the package. Take a look at the education sector for example. For the Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA), the September recruitment crunch is an annual occurrence. Claire Lornie, Head of Operations, needed a system to support fast, bulk hiring. By using Employment Hero, she’s able to hire for 50 seasonal roles at once, reducing manual CV screening, saving hours per open job role, and sourcing high-quality candidates through SmartMatch.

Hiring under pressure. Time against the clock.

Each summer, Claire and her team are tasked with filling around 50 roles concurrently, while juggling the demands of day-to-day operations. Already managing nine separate teams, Claire’s plate is full, but in the lead up to September, she’s met with a whole host of challenges:

• High-volume hiring with over 400 applicants involved in the process.
• Niche skillsets needed for some positions, making sourcing difficult.
• Manual shortlisting that took days of intensive effort.
• A workforce that expands from around 120 to nearly 200 employees, requiring smooth onboarding and coordination.

“I had to go through [400 applications] myself… by the end of that day I was literally like, oh gosh. It was like a form of torture that I didn’t ever imagine having to go back to.”

The existing recruitment process wasn’t scalable. Claire needed a way to hire smarter and faster, without drowning in CVs.

The solution

Smarter hiring with SmartMatch

The turning point came with Employment Hero’s SmartMatch, a feature designed to remove the chaos from high-volume recruitment. Rather than relying on job titles or surface-level keywords, SmartMatch uses AI to assess full candidate profiles, matching skills, experience, preferences, and location with job criteria.

“SmartMatch is great for niche roles because the AI matches skills based on the candidate’s full experience instead of just scanning job titles. That depth makes a huge difference.”

Claire’s team also leveraged SmartMatch for proactive hiring, scanning potential matches for roles that weren’t yet open. That meant when the time came, they already had a shortlist of strong candidates ready to go.

“The ability to test the market in advance, before a role goes live, is something unique to Employment Hero. We can reduce turnaround time and start conversations earlier.”

The proof is in the people. One of their recent hires, matched through SmartMatch, has already become a standout.

“She had the relevant experience and was definitely one of the best candidates we interviewed. We’re lucky to have found her through Employment Hero.”

A unified system for a lean, fast-paced team

DUSA didn’t just choose Employment Hero for hiring. They needed an all-in-one system that would support all aspects of HR from one centralised location.

“We moved to Employment Hero because it did HR, timesheets, payroll – all of it. It’s made it so much easier having everything in one place. The Applicant Tracking System is a huge improvement compared to our last HR system.”

The result? Processes are now seamless. With automated templates, digital onboarding, and centralised Applicant Tracking System, DUSA can manage their high-pressure hiring periods without overwhelm.

The impact

Hiring reimagined. Time reclaimed.

With Employment Hero in place, DUSA is building a hiring engine that works smarter, not harder. Claire’s team’s processes are now carried out in record timing, which helps reduce the strain of the September hiring push.

Since making the switch, DUSA has:

• Hired 50 seasonal roles faster and more effectively.
• Reduced manual CV screening, saving up to 24 hours per open job role for roles with high levels of applicants.
• Hired high-quality candidates through SmartMatch, including standout performers.
• Replaced disjointed systems with a single, unified platform.
• Streamlined recruitment with automated templates and comms tracking.

“For us, Employment Hero has been a fantastic system and I can’t say anything bad about it. Nothing has come up that we haven’t been able to get the right support from the team with.”

The world’s first Employment Operating System from Employment Hero

Employment Hero’s Employment Operating System is more than just a platform–we’ve taken the traditional isolated aspects of employment and integrated them into a seamless, human and AI-powered solution that empowers employers, employees and job seekers alike. Find and hire top talent with SmartMatch, seamlessly onboard new hires, automate complex payroll, drive employee engagement and more.

See what you could do with the world’s first Employment OS.

One system. Everything employment.