• Industry: Staffing & Recruiting-as-a-Service
• Use Case: High-volume candidate evaluation & workflow automation
• Products: Daxtra TalentFlow + SmartScore
• Relationship: Daxtra Partner

The Challenge

Field of Talent found one of their client’s recruiters were spending more than 30% of their time manually reviewing resumes, eyeballing CVs, and making judgment calls on candidate quality. When the firm saw this, they knew this was an unsustainable drag on productivity and profitability for their client.

An analysis of the client's pipeline made the cost unmistakably clear:

Reality Check: 874 hours represents 22 weeks of full-time work for a single recruiter, just to move candidates through the initial funnel for 33 open roles. This is why top talent goes to competitors.

The problem wasn't effort. It was scale. With 24,184 applicants and no systematic way to rank or prioritize, the team had no choice but to rely on instinct and sequencing luck. The best candidate might arrive on a Friday afternoon and never make it to the top of the stack, which by that time they have already moved on.

Why Daxtra

Field of Talent had been a Daxtra partner prior to the merger, using it as a core component of their recruiting-as-a-service delivery model. After the acquisition, they continued building on the platform, driven by a shared conviction: AI in recruiting shouldn't replace the recruiter. It should amplify them.

"We wanted to be ahead of AI in recruiting and capitalize on it. With the leadership in place now, it feels like things are moving in the right direction."

David and his team were drawn to Daxtra's approach of keeping the human in the loop. TalentFlow wasn't a black box, it was a tool that helped recruiters do more with the same effort, and SmartScore extended that logic directly into candidate evaluation.

The Solution: TalentFlow + SmartScore

TalentFlow: Recruiting-as-a-Service, Reimagined

TalentFlow serves as the operational tool for Field of Talent's delivery model. It handles top-of-funnel and mid-funnel support, including candidate outreach, scheduling, and day-to-day workflow execution, freeing the recruiting team from administrative burden and enabling them to focus on relationship-building and client delivery.

SmartScore: From Eyeballs to Ranked Intelligence

SmartScore introduced a structured, algorithmic approach to candidate evaluation, scoring applicants across eight measurable factors. For a team accustomed to gut-feel ranking, the shift was significant and fast.

Onboarding was straightforward. The team spent half a day with Daxtra working through the platform. What made adoption stick was transparency: SmartScore doesn't just produce a score, it shows the reasoning behind it.

"It gives everyone confidence. The math is correct, it's consistent, and you don't have to worry about AI hallucinations because it's an algorithm. The explanation behind the 8 factors builds real trust," David said.

To validate SmartScore before rolling it out broadly, David ran a live test with a real client: 22 candidates in the construction sector who had already gone through conversations with the recruiting team. SmartScore ranked them. The results matched how the recruiters themselves would have ranked the pool.

Validation Test: SmartScore ranked 22 candidates in construction exactly as experienced recruiters would have, with no prompting or calibration required.

The Results

Recruiter Productivity

• 30%+ of lead recruiter time reclaimed from manual resume review

• 874 hours of annual manual labor addressable through automation

• Teams redirected toward sourcing, interviewing, and relationship activity    

Candidate Quality & Speed

• Consistent, explainable candidate rankings across all requisitions

• No reliance on resume sequencing or day-of-week submission timing

• Faster shortlist delivery without increasing headcount

Database Activation

• Existing candidate data now searchable and rankable at scale

• Email campaign capability enables outreach to dormant talent pools

• Reduces dependency on external job boards for qualified candidates    

Business Growth

• SmartScore became a selling point in winning new client engagements

• Talent accelerator pitch strengthened by rankable candidate proof

• Platform enables Field of Talent to grow without growing the team

What David Would Tell Other Staffing Leaders

"Just do it. If you have good candidate flow, if you know you have gold applicants in your database, let us help you with that. Talent teams don't always know which applicants stack up. The best one might have come in on a Friday but you aren’t able to get to it by Monday, and by that time the candidate has moved on. SmartScore means you start the process now." he said. 

David's advice reflects a broader philosophy on candidate engagement: flip the script. Rather than letting candidates wait in uncertainty, engage them all. Tell the right ones they look like a great fit. Tell others it may not be the right role, but you'll stay in touch. Speed and honesty win candidate loyalty, and every one of those conversations has value down the line.

Looking Ahead

David and the Field of Talent team are particularly excited about upcoming capabilities: gap analysis, automated outreach triggers when a candidate scores above a threshold, loyalty scoring for consistent achievers, and AI-driven clarification prompts for candidates whose history warrants a follow-up question.

For David, the vision is clear: TalentFlow and SmartScore aren't just tools in the stack. They are the foundation for a scaling recruiting business that can deliver more, faster, and at lower cost, without sacrificing the human relationships that make great placements possible.

Learn how Daxtra TalentFlow and SmartScore can transform your recruiting workflow at daxtra.com or try SmartScore first hand here!