CUSTOMER STORY
“My Secret Weapon”: How Cascade Simplified Hiring and Built a Better Candidate Experience
About Cascade Senior Living Services
Cascade Senior Living Services is a privately owned, boutique senior-care management company founded in 2016. Drawing on decades of operational know-how, it develops and runs adult-day health, assisted-living and memory-care programs across four Washington campuses, offering a high-touch, innovative environment that keeps census strong while safeguarding regulatory compliance. The result is an exceptional quality of life for residents and a fulfilling workplace culture for the team.
At Cascade Senior Living Services, people aren’t just part of the mission. People are the mission.
Founded in 2016, Cascade set out to provide essential care for low-income, vulnerable adults across the Tacoma region. While technically a for-profit business, the team operates with a deeply nonprofit spirit: 85% of their residents are Medicaid-funded, and many would have nowhere else to turn. As HR Director Diana Verrue puts it, “We are the safety net.”
But building that safety net has never been easy.
When Diana joined as the organization’s first HR professional in early 2017, Cascade had just two buildings. Today, they’ve grown to five locations, six programs, and a staff of 300—touching the lives of over 450 employees annually due to turnover at the frontline level.
Managing that growth with limited resources meant relying on a clunky, payroll-first HRIS system that was not built for modern recruiting. Scheduling interviews required endless back-and-forth. Outlook invites were created manually. Reminders were sent by text, copied from phone templates. And 60% of the time? Candidates ghosted them completely.
“It felt like we were just sending a message into the void,” Diana said. “Nothing spoke to each other. We’d forget to follow up, and people wouldn’t show up.”
Cascade didn’t just need more applications. They needed a way to actually connect with candidates, streamline the process, and reclaim precious time.
Enter Recruit: their secret weapon for hiring smarter, faster, and with a more human touch.
The Challenge –
In a mission-driven organization like Cascade, every hour counts—and so does every hire. But for years, the recruitment process was bogged down by outdated tools, manual workarounds, and a whole lot of guesswork.
The team relied on their HRIS system for applicant tracking. But as HR Director Diana Verrue quickly discovered, it was built for payroll first, recruiting second.
“It’s not super user-friendly on the recruiting side,” she explained. “We used it because it was already in place, but it wasn’t built for what we needed.”
Scheduling interviews felt like flying blind. With no visibility into hiring managers’ calendars, Diana had to manually track each person’s availability across five buildings. Each interview required:
- 10 to 20 minutes of back-and-forth per candidate
- Manually sending Outlook invites
- Copying and pasting resumes and notes
- Sending templated texts from her personal phone
- Hoping, often in vain, that the candidate would show up
“We were being ghosted 60% of the time,” Diana shared. “There was no follow-up, no confirmation, no connection.”
That added up fast: with 10–15 interviews per week, Diana and her team were spending 2–3 hours just on scheduling. And when interviews fell through, the costs extended far beyond time. Open roles lingered. Sponsored job postings ran longer. Teams stayed understaffed.
Cascade was paying an average of $500 per sponsored listing on Indeed and at times had 4–6 listings running across five buildings. The math was clear: between $2,000–$3,000 a month in job ad spend, countless hours of admin work, and constant candidate fallout, their recruitment process needed a serious upgrade.
To stay competitive in a tight labor market, Cascade needed a system that worked smarter, not harder. One that could save time, reduce ghosting, and deliver a better experience for candidates and hiring managers alike.
The Solution –
The turning point came when Cascade brought on a third HR team member to focus on recruitment and were introduced to Recruit.
From the start, it felt like the missing piece.
Instead of relying on disconnected tools and manual follow-up, Recruit brought everything into one streamlined system: scheduling, communication, candidate tracking, and automation.
The impact was immediate:
- Managers set their own availability in advance, so Diana no longer had to guess or track preferences across buildings.
- Candidates chose interview times directly from those slots, eliminating back-and-forth.
- Automated texts confirmed appointments, sent friendly reminders, and followed up. No more copying and pasting from phone templates.
- Prescreening questions filtered out unqualified applicants before they ever hit Diana’s desk.
“We’re being ghosted way less frequently,” she shared. “The tone of the messages is fun, warm, and personal,” Diana shared. “You can tell by the way people respond that it feels welcoming. It stands out in a world of automation that feels very cold. They probably don’t even realize they’re talking to AI.”
The new process didn’t just make life easier. It changed the candidate experience entirely. Interviews were better organized, communication was proactive, and the entire journey felt more professional and engaging.
And for Diana and her team? It was a game-changer.
“We used to spend 2–3 hours a week just on scheduling,” she said. “Now, all that time is freed up, and the quality of candidates we’re seeing is better, too.”
In the background, Recruit quietly handled the details: reminders, reschedules, confirmations, and communication across five different buildings. What used to feel chaotic now felt controlled.
Or, as Diana calls it: “My secret weapon.”
The Outcome –
For Cascade, Recruit didn’t just streamline the hiring process—it changed the trajectory of their recruitment outcomes.
Interview ghosting, once a major pain point, dropped significantly. What used to happen 60% of the time is now the rare exception, thanks to consistent, friendly candidate follow-ups that keep applicants engaged and informed.
Recruit also delivered measurable time savings for the HR team. By automating tasks like scheduling, reminders, and follow-up texts, Diana and her team reclaimed 2–3 hours per week. That’s time they now spend on high-impact work like interviewing stronger candidates and supporting hiring managers.
And the impact on cost? Undeniable.
“We used to have 4 to 6 sponsored job ads running across five buildings at a time,” Diana said. “Now we’re down to 2. That’s saving us $1,500–$2,000 a month—easily.”
With better communication, faster hiring, and stronger candidates, Cascade has improved every stage of the hiring journey. Roles are filled sooner. Teams stay supported. And candidates walk into interviews feeling seen and valued.
But perhaps the most telling result?
“If we lost Recruit,” Diana admitted, “I’d be lost. It would feel like we were going backward. Less equipped. Like we’d lost a core part of how we operate.”
For Cascade Senior Living Services, Recruit isn’t just a tool. It’s a trusted partner in creating a smoother, more human hiring experience. And for a mission-driven organization working with limited resources, that kind of support makes all the difference.
