Introduction
A mental health company specializing in the treatment of OCD and anxiety faced major challenges in recruitment and HR infrastructure. With clinical hires central to its business model and the founder deeply involved in hiring, the company needed more than just a staffing agency—it needed a partner.
Enter Ampleo HR. Through an embedded recruiting model, Savana Tejada, an experienced HR consultant, seamlessly integrated into the organization, building its talent acquisition foundation from the ground up.
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Challenge
Before Ampleo HR’s engagement, the company’s hiring pipeline was sparse and lacked strategic direction. Recruitment efforts were reactive, with no structured process in place. The company had never collaborated with a recruiter who could offer both strategic insight and execution support.
Key challenges included the following:
- Slim Talent Pipeline: Few applicants and limited visibility on major platforms
- No Standardized Processes: Lack of scorecards, structured interviews, and offer templates
- Decentralized Candidate Information: No system to track or organize applicant data
- Founder-Led Hiring: Needed a deeply tailored and high-touch recruitment approach due to the founder’s personal involvement
Given the founder’s dedication to maintaining quality and culture, traditional external recruiting lacked the depth needed to deliver the right candidate experience.
Solution
An Embedded, High-Touch Approach
Recognizing the need for a partner, not a staffing agency, the mental health company brought in Ampleo HR to serve as an embedded recruiter and HR manager. Savana Tejada became an extension of the company’s team—learning its culture, collaborating with leadership, and operationalizing HR from the inside out.
Building from the Ground Up
Savana overhauled and professionalized every aspect of the hiring process:
- Job Descriptions: Collaboratively developed descriptions using Ampleo HR templates and refined them through live editing sessions with hiring managers
- Compensation Benchmarking: Tailored benchmarking to the company’s out-of-pocket billing model using tools like OpenComp, Glassdoor, and Salary.com
- Sourcing Strategies: Leveraged LinkedIn, Indeed, and niche state licensure databases for highly targeted outreach
- Interview Process: Joined every interview early on, modeling expectations and gradually empowering the internal team to take over
- Offer Management: Created role-specific offer templates, structured compensation bands, and implemented preapproval processes
- Onboarding and Compliance: Focused on New York employment law compliance, prestart checklists, and a transition to electronic systems for onboarding and timekeeping
Integration into the Team
Operating in a largely in-person environment, Savana quickly built trust with the CEO and worked closely with clinical and administrative staff. Her communication style and proactive involvement led to Ampleo HR being seen as more than a consultant—it became a core partner in business operations.
“We built everything from the ground up—recruitment tools, scorecards, compensation bands, compliance processes, and more. By embedding directly into the team, I was able to truly understand its operations, coach its leadership, and establish a sustainable HR foundation that will serve it long after the engagement ends.”
—Savana Tejada, HR Consultant, Ampleo HR
Results
The embedded partnership between Ampleo HR and the mental health company produced tangible, lasting results:
- Boosted Pipeline: Increased applications from 17 to 54 in a recent hiring cycle
- Efficient Hiring: Reduced time-to-fill to just 25 days from job posting to accepted offer
- Process Standardization: Introduced hiring scorecards, a recruitment dashboard, structured interviews, compensation guides, and offer templates
- Improved Maturity: Created a centralized people folder, digitized onboarding, launched auditing tools, and implemented compliance training
- Long-Term Value: Delivered a hiring guide, documentation templates, and coaching for managers—assets that will continue to elevate HR operations
Conclusion
This engagement showcases Ampleo HR’s strength in embedded recruiting, especially within specialized industries like healthcare. By assigning a dedicated, knowledgeable consultant, Ampleo provided strategic HR support that was customized, culturally aligned, and operationally integrated. The result was not just better hiring—it was a more mature, compliant, and scalable HR function.
