The ROI of Recruiting Right - Rob Dunderdale - Hiring Happy Hour - Episode # 025
"As a human being looking at a career-defining moment, having the opportunity to do a transformation like that is gold. It’s given the recruitment team a seat at the table."
1,500% ROI. 42% faster hiring. 570% more graduate applicants. 92,000 productivity hours returned. These aren’t projections — they’re what happened when one TA leader decided to treat hiring transformation as a business outcome, not an IT project.
In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole sits down with Rob Dunderdale, former Head of Talent Attraction at KPMG Australia and Enterprise Talent Leader of the Year (International Talent Awards, 2023), to unpack one of the most measurable hiring transformations in recent memory. Rob shares how a business case built on commercial waste, a living ROI dashboard, a dedicated transformation team, and a culture of “green dot moments” helped turn hiring transformation into lasting business impact.
At a time when many organizations are trying to modernize hiring through AI and new technology, this conversation is a reminder that real transformation takes more than tools alone. It takes process simplification, the right operating model, executive support, clear metrics, disciplined change management, and a relentless focus on the human experience at the center of hiring.
Takeaways:
Build your business case around commercial impact, not recruitment metrics. Framing slow hiring as financial waste rather than an HR inefficiency is what gets CFO attention and unlocks investment.
An ROI dashboard isn’t just a reporting tool; it’s a trust-building mechanism. When every stakeholder can see progress in real time, leaders earn the space to do the deeper transformation work.
Separate your transformation team from BAU delivery, or transformation will always lose. Giving a dedicated group ownership of the project made it possible to move fast without sacrificing day-to-day hiring.
Tailor your data to your audience. The same underlying metric can mean something very different to a CFO, a hiring manager, or a TA leader. The most effective dashboards translate numbers into the language each stakeholder cares about.
“Best practice” is a ceiling, not a goal. Rob’s team actively studied competitors and emerging players to reach what they called “next practice”, raising the bar above what currently existed in the market.
Great hiring technology gives humanity more room. Cutting application time from 40 minutes to three and integrating 19 solutions didn’t just save hours; it put empathy back into the process by freeing recruiters to build real relationships.
Quote of the Show:
“As a human being looking at a career-defining moment, having the opportunity to do a transformation like that is gold. It’s great to see that you can leave such a legacy for an organization. It’s given the recruitment team a seat at the table.” - Rob Dunderdale
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdunderdale/
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