Managing early-career programs can feel like a never-ending cycle of juggling tasks, from recruiting to onboarding to retaining talent. Many program managers face the same question: how do you keep candidates engaged and reduce turnover?
The struggle to create a welcoming, efficient process that resonates with today’s workforce—particularly Gen Zers—is real. The good news is that Abode simplifies these processes, enhancing candidate engagement and retention.
This article reveals why early-career program managers trust Abode to solve their recruitment and onboarding challenges.
The Challenges Early-Career Hiring Managers Face
You’re probably familiar with the problems of managing early-career programs. Engagement can drop quickly after the offer, and keeping candidates interested and prepared before their start date often gets complicated with emails, spreadsheets, and many manual tasks. Here’s what many early-career hiring managers are dealing with today.
1. Low Engagement and Retention
After receiving offers, many candidates must navigate months of radio silence before their start date. With little communication, they lose excitement and might even reconsider joining the company. This leads to high reneges and low retention rates once they do start.
For example, Lithko, a large construction company, saw that its scattered emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls led to inconsistent messaging and disengaged candidates. Without a unified process, many interns and new hires didn’t feel connected to the company before their first day.
2. Outdated Communication Systems
Many applicant tracking systems (ATS) and human resources information systems (HRIS) systems weren’t designed with Gen Z in mind. They rely on emails and formal communication styles, which don’t work with younger employees. Gen Z prefers instant, personalized communication. Gaps and silence can lead to lower engagement and satisfaction.
Cognizant, a global IT firm, encountered this. They relied on an email-heavy system that wasn’t working well with Gen Z hires. They needed a platform allowing more casual, real-time communication, like text messaging, to align with their audience’s preferences.
3. Inefficient Manual Processes
Onboarding and pre-boarding often rely on manual tasks that take time and leave room for human error. Tracking down I-9 forms, managing equipment shipments, and scheduling training sessions can become logistical nightmares if managed across multiple systems. These inefficiencies are time-wasting and create a poor candidate experience.
At American Family Insurance, these manual processes were consuming valuable time for the talent acquisition team. They found themselves sending out individual emails manually, week after week, managing communication through scattered channels, and losing track of essential steps before candidates even started.
ATS and HRIS Systems Limitations
Most organizations’ systems today—ATS, HRIS, and even email platforms—often cannot address these challenges. Here’s why these traditional tools can make the situation worse.
1. Disconnected Communication Channels
ATS platforms are great for tracking applications but often don’t provide a seamless way to engage with candidates post-offer. Hiring managers must bounce between different tools—email, spreadsheets, and sometimes messaging apps—to stay in touch with incoming hires, often leading to inconsistent messaging and disengagement.
At HUB International, for example, interns and managers kept in touch using YouTube, GroupMe, and emails. Creating a unified experience for all interns across 35 different offices proved nearly impossible with such fragmentation.
2. Poor Candidate Experience
Traditional systems aren’t built to prioritize candidate experience, especially for early-career talent. Gen Z, in particular, expects instant communication, transparency, and meaningful interactions with their future employers. Systems that rely solely on email often come across as formal and distant—two things Gen Z doesn’t respond well to.
Cognizant found that their formal email structure didn’t align with the casual, emoji-filled communication style preferred by Gen Z hires. The lack of engagement frustrated candidates and created an enormous administrative burden for the team, who spent 80+ hours a week managing communications.
3. Limited Task Management
Onboarding is more than just paperwork—it’s about preparing new hires for success before they start. Traditional systems don’t offer comprehensive tools to assign and track tasks, schedule check-ins, or deliver personalized onboarding materials. This leaves room for missed deadlines, forgotten tasks, and a poor onboarding experience.
At American Family Insurance, the scattered approach to managing these tasks created frequent delays in onboarding. Important pre-boarding steps were often missed, leaving candidates unprepared and talent teams scrambling to fix issues at the last minute.
What Makes Abode Different?
Abode solves all these challenges by offering a centralized hub where early-career managers can track candidates, engage with them meaningfully, and ensure no details slip through the cracks. Here’s how Abode stands out.
1. Candidate-Centric Approach
Unlike traditional systems focussing purely on tracking data, Abode engages candidates right from the offer. It allows hiring managers to create engaging pre-boarding programs that excite candidates about their new roles.
For example, Cognizant used Abode to automate text message reminders and incorporated emojis to make communication more personal and relatable. The result was 50% less time spent on admin, freeing the team to focus on creating a better candidate experience.
2. Unified Communication
Abode consolidates communication, eliminating the need to bounce between platforms. A centralized system ensures consistent messaging and makes it easy to keep candidates engaged, whether through personalized emails, community forums, or task management tools. HUB International found that this all-in-one approach simplified communication and increased engagement across their internship program, reaching a 100% intern engagement rate.
3. Engagement Tools Built for Gen Z
Abode understands that Gen Z communicates differently. So, the platform offers tools that facilitate casual, instant communication—like text messaging and community forums—ensuring candidates stay engaged authentically.
At Elevance Health, for example, Abode’s engagement tools helped maintain a 92% candidate adoption rate by sending over 7,000 notifications, texts, and emails during pre-boarding. This level of engagement ensured that interns felt informed and welcome.
Success Stories and Testimonials
Now, let’s explore what real program managers say about their firsthand experience with Abode’s impact. They have transformed their recruitment and onboarding, increasing engagement, retention, and saving time.
1. HUB International: Streamlined a Complex Internship Program
Before Abode, HUB International struggled to manage an internship program spread across 35 offices. Communication was inconsistent, and interns didn’t feel connected to the broader organization.
After implementing Abode, HUB achieved 100% engagement rate from interns, with many praising how easy it was to connect with their peers through Abode’s community forum. Robin Winer, an Early Career Associate at HUB, shared, “Abode made it so everything was under one umbrella, and every candidate had the same messaging.”
2. American Family Insurance: Moved from Chaos to Cohesion
American Family Insurance had a significant issue with its pre-boarding process. Critical emails were getting lost, equipment wasn’t shipped on time, and interns didn’t feel prepared.
Since adopting Abode, the company saw a 100% candidate adoption rate and a 91% intern engagement rate. The pre-board process is now streamlined, and interns can access all the resources they need in one place. Korrie Warren, a Program Administrator, shared, “Abode’s platform has been instrumental in keeping us organized and making sure nothing gets missed.”
3. Lithko: Reduced Reneges by 50%
For Lithko, keeping candidates engaged before they start was a significant challenge. By switching to Abode, they created a more consistent and engaging pre-boarding experience, which led to a 50% decrease in reneges.
Jessica Coons, a Talent Program Coordinator, emphasized how Abode’s mobile-friendly platform helped them reach candidates no matter where they were: “In our industry, it can be difficult to find technology partners that understand the challenges of having most users on a construction site all day. Abode has done a great job ensuring a mobile-friendly solution that considers our specific needs.”
4. Cognizant: Cut Admin Time by 50%
Cognizant faced a vast administrative burden before switching to Abode. Their team spent 80+ hours a week managing communications. Abode’s automated reminders, task management, and community forums cut that time in half, allowing the team to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Tria Charnas, New Hire Experience Senior Manager, praised the platform, saying, “Abode’s automation has been a game-changer for us, making it easier to keep in touch with our candidates and reduce the administrative load.”
5. Danaher: Built Long-Term Engagement
For Danaher, managing its early identification program, JUMP, posed unique challenges. This program targets first- and second-year students, meaning engagement must be maintained long before candidates transition into internships or full-time roles.
Using Abode, Danaher was able to streamline communication and track candidate engagement, achieving a 98% candidate adoption rate. Abode’s centralized communication hub delivered consistent updates, while its task management tools ensured every candidate completed their pre-boarding requirements on time.
Norman Jones, Director of Global University Recruitment at Danaher, remarked, “Abode played a huge part in the success of our first early identification cohort. It provided a way for us to stay connected with candidates, keep them warm, and ensure no one slipped through the cracks.”
6. Elevance Health: Kept Gen Z Engaged Pre-Start
Elevance Health had problems engaging candidates during the pre-board process, especially with a hybrid internship model where some interns worked remotely. The traditional email-heavy system wasn’t delivering, and essential communications were often missed.
After implementing Abode, the team saw a 92% candidate adoption rate and an 81% engagement rate, with over 7,000 notifications sent through the platform. Brooke Smith, Talent Acquisition Manager, shares how Abode helped streamline the process: “Abode provides a solution that allows us to better connect with Gen Z talent in a way that engages them. It offers a way for Elevance Health to enhance our brand and coin ourselves as an employer of choice.”
Abode’s Features are Built for Modern Recruitment
Abode is our comprehensive platform designed for today’s early-career program managers. It offers a centralized hub for communication, engagement, and task management. It replaces fragmented tools like emails and spreadsheets, allowing managers to send updates, share onboarding materials, and create community spaces for candidates from a single platform.
With features designed with Gen Z in mind, including text messaging, casual communication options, and forums, Abode keeps candidates engaged and excited throughout the pre-boarding process.
Our platform also simplifies task management by automating pre-boarding tasks, ensuring nothing is missed. Managers can assign, track, and monitor tasks in real time, giving candidates a clear path to follow before their start date. Additionally, Abode’s data-driven insights offer visibility into candidate engagement, helping managers identify potential issues early and ensure smooth onboarding.
Beyond managing logistics, Abode encourages community building with built-in forums and discussion boards where candidates can connect, share experiences, and ask questions in a safe and welcoming environment. Combining seamless communication, task automation, and community engagement makes Abode vital for enhancing the candidate experience.
Why Program Managers Trust Abode
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from these testimonials, it’s that Abode doesn’t just fix problems—it transforms how early-career programs work. From reducing administrative tasks and keeping candidates engaged to creating a seamless onboarding experience, Abode helps companies attract and retain top talent.
Gen Z expects a personalized, engaging, and transparent onboarding experience. Abode helps companies adapt to these changing expectations by offering tools that facilitate real-time communication, task management, and community building in ways that feel authentic to this new generation of workers. Whether it’s text message reminders or community forums, Abode gives companies the tools to connect with Gen Z meaningfully.
Conclusion
Abode disrupts early-career program processes, reduces reneges, and keeps candidates excited. Whether you’re struggling with inefficient processes, poor engagement, or high turnover, Abode provides the tools to create a welcoming environment for new hires while saving your team time and effort.
The success stories prove that Abode is the future of early-career recruitment and onboarding. Ready to give your early-career program the boost it deserves? See why so many companies love Abode.
