Client: Last Call Media
Sector: Digital Consultancy (Government, Education, Non-Profit)
Location: North America (Fully Remote)
Service Model: Embedded Recruitment

Company Overview

Last Call Media is a 50+ person, fully remote digital consultancy supporting government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profit organisations across North America.

They specialise in building and modernising digital platforms, requiring highly skilled technical talent, particularly in full stack software engineering.

The Challenge: High Application Volume, Low Candidate Quality

As the business entered a growth phase, hiring demand increased rapidly with a requirement to hire 5+ full stack engineers.

However, the hiring process became inefficient and high-risk due to:

• A surge in low-quality applications, many generated using AI tools
• Increased instances of “catfishing” candidates misrepresenting identity, location, or experience
• Significant time drain on internal teams reviewing irrelevant or misleading applications
• Difficulty verifying candidate authenticity, even at interview stage
• Risk of poor hiring decisions due to lack of reliable screening processes

This created a bottleneck where volume was high, but trust and quality were low.

Our Talent Acquisition Strategy

We embedded directly into Last Call Media’s hiring process, taking full ownership of the recruitment function and introducing structure, control, and quality assurance.

Our approach included:

• End-to-end recruitment management
  Managing sourcing, screening, and first-round interviews to reduce internal workload
• Enhanced candidate verification process
  Introducing live video screening via Teams to validate identity, location, and authenticity
• Targeted sourcing for technical roles
  Focusing on qualified full stack engineers aligned with project and sector requirements
• Strict screening and qualification criteria
  Filtering out AI-generated and misrepresented applications early in the process
• Candidate-role alignment
  Ensuring only candidates with relevant technical capability and experience progressed

Geography: Remote Hiring Across North America

Operating in a fully remote model, Last Call Media required candidates based in the US.

We implemented additional verification steps to ensure:

• Candidates were genuinely located in the US
• Compliance with hiring requirements
• Reduced risk of fraudulent or misrepresented applicants

Results: Restoring Control and Confidence in Hiring

• Significant reduction in time spent reviewing irrelevant applications
• Improved quality of candidates progressing to interview stage
• Increased confidence in candidate authenticity and suitability
• Streamlined hiring process with clear ownership and structure
• Enabled internal teams to focus on final-stage decision-making rather than screening