One Approach, Three Very Different Challenges: AI-Enhanced Recruitment in Practice
World Duty Free: 19 years, 1,300 hires a year, IHR Bronze Award for "Use of AI"
Leonard Cheshire: 64% faster shortlisting, values-based hiring at scale
Martin-Baker: 9.8/10 candidate satisfaction on specialist, technical roles
Every recruitment challenge feels unique when you’re in the middle of it. These RPO case studies covers three real ones: filling dozens of vacancies across multiple locations without the process falling apart, hiring for values and culture fit as much as skill, and finding one specific, highly technical hire that the usual approach isn’t built to find.
Here’s the thing: whichever of those sounds like you, there’s a real chance we’ve already solved a version of it.
ResourceBank works with clients facing all three of these challenges, and while every situation is different, our approach is built around the same idea: technology handling the repetitive, high-volume parts of recruitment, and people handling the judgement, relationships and decisions that actually determine whether someone’s the right hire. We call this Hi-Tech, Hi-Touch recruitment.
Here’s what that’s looked like in practice for three very different partnerships, World Duty Free, Leonard Cheshire, and Martin-Baker, and what it could mean for whichever challenge sounds most like yours.
World Duty Free: A High-Volume, Multi-Site Recruitment Case Study
The Challenge
World Duty Free operates in a uniquely complex hiring environment: airside security clearance requirements that can take months to complete, fluctuating passenger volumes, seasonal peaks, and intense competition for retail talent against major high street names, all while every candidate needs clearance most retailers never have to think about. When ResourceBank first partnered with World Duty Free in 2007, the brief was to recruit 150 vacancies to join their team for the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5. Nineteen years later, that single project has grown into full responsibility for recruiting across all skills, retail, logistics and head office, across multiple UK airport locations.
The Approach
As ResourceBank’s AI capability developed, it was introduced into the World Duty Free partnership carefully, tested at a smaller scale first, then expanded once results held up. (Read more about our AI story). AI-powered interview screening now plays a role in managing the volume of applications across World Duty Free’s sites, alongside a fully integrated employer brand, careers website, and digital interview process. It’s built around the operational realities, security clearance timelines and seasonal peaks, that make this hiring environment genuinely difficult to get right.
The Results
- 1,300 hires a year across all skill areas
- Average time to offer of 8.03 days
- AI tools improving effectiveness by 33%
- In 2024, the partnership won the Long-Term Talent Solutions Partnership Award at the TIARA Talent Solutions Awards. The judges’ comments noted ResourceBank’s “innovative use of technology, focus on satisfaction, and deep integration as an extension of the client’s HR team,” resulting in “improved hiring efficiency, quality candidates, and significant cost savings”
- In 2025, ResourceBank and Hubert were awarded Bronze in the “Use of AI” category at the In-house Recruitment Awards, recognising the World Duty Free partnership specifically for its use of AI in recruitment.
Lesley, who co-leads the World Duty Free account, sums up the impact: “The biggest benefit AI has brought to our WDF screening process is consistency. It gives every candidate the same opportunity to demonstrate their skills and experience, while giving us richer, more structured insight to make better-informed decisions about who progresses.”
As Geoff Hall, Former HR Director UK & Northern Europe at World Duty Free, puts it: “Appointing ResourceBank in 2007 was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. We have every confidence in the team and they have played a massive role in our successful growth.”
Nineteen years, an award-winning partnership, and results that keep compounding, that’s not luck. That’s what Hi-Tech, Hi-Touch looks like at scale.
Leonard Cheshire: A Values-Based, High-Volume Hiring Case Study
The Challenge
Leonard Cheshire needed a recruitment partner for a very different kind of high-volume hiring, filling Support Worker, Nurse, Service Manager and Support Services vacancies across England and Scotland, where the right fit is about values and behaviour as much as it is about experience on paper.
The Approach
ResourceBank took on the entire recruitment and onboarding function for these vacancies, with AI-powered screening supporting the volume of applications coming through, while keeping the human judgement that value–based hiring depends on firmly in place.
The Results
Within our ongoing partnership with Leonard Cheshire, application-to-shortlist time was cut by 64% between Q1 and Q2 2026, with:
- An 18% reduction in live vacancies, vacancies genuinely getting filled, not just applications processed faster
- Offer acceptance holding steady at 82%, with 95% of candidates rating their experience positively
One Leonard Cheshire contact put it simply: one of the biggest priorities has been building relationships with managers and becoming a visible, trusted part of the Leonard Cheshire team, not just a supplier processing applications from a distance.
Faster, more consistent, still deeply human, that’s the combination values-based hiring actually needs.
Martin-Baker: A Specialist, Technical Recruitment Case Study
The Challenge
Martin-Baker’s hiring needs sit at the opposite end of the spectrum. Safety-critical, highly technical engineering vacancies in the defence and aerospace sector, where candidates are scarce, competition for them is fierce, and a wrong hire is a genuinely expensive mistake. High-volume tools built for speed and scale aren’t built for this kind of hiring.
The Approach
This is where the “customised” part of ResourceBank’s AI approach really shows. Rather than the conversational screening tools used for high-volume vacancies, Martin-Baker’s recruitment is supported by AI within our ATS and sourcing platforms, focused on semantic skills matching and intelligent search. It’s built to identify candidates whose experience closely matches complex technical requirements, and to reach passive candidates in a highly competitive market who’d never respond to a standard job advert.
The Results
- Over 1,200 applications reviewed, with 350+ candidates proactively sourced, actively found and approached by ResourceBank, not people who applied
- 45 highly technical, senior-level engineering vacancies filled in 9 months
- 9.8/10 average candidate satisfaction over 12 months
As Ed Longhurst, Account Manager, puts it:
“AI has become a key part of how we recruit for Martin-Baker, helping us identify strong talent faster and improve efficiency throughout the hiring process. Through AI tools within our ATS and sourcing platforms, we’re able to quickly pinpoint candidates whose skills and experience closely match role requirements, while also expanding our reach to engage passive talent in highly competitive markets. However, for Martin-Baker, technology works best when paired with a strong human approach.”
One candidate’s experience reflects that balance directly: “Very informative. I appreciated that Ed gave me space to explain my background, and the targeted questions helped bring out how my experience aligns with the role.”
When the stakes are this high and the candidates this scarce, “good enough” isn’t good enough. This is what finding the right one, every time, actually looks like.
Same Principles, Three Different Applications
None of these clients are using “the same AI,” and none of their challenges looked alike going in. What they have in common is a recruitment partner that built the approach around what they actually needed, not a fixed package applied regardless of fit.
If you’re reading this wondering whether any of it applies to a business like yours, that’s a fair question. The honest answer is: probably, in some form. These three RPO case studies and partnerships didn’t start with a shared industry, a shared scale, or a shared problem. They started with a conversation about what wasn’t working, and a partner willing to build something specific to fix it.
The numbers above show what’s measurable right now, faster processes, higher satisfaction, vacancies filled instead of just applications moved. What we’re working toward, and expect these numbers to keep proving out over time, is what actually matters long-term: better hiring decisions, stronger cultural fit, and lower turnover because the right person was found for the right reasons, not just found quickly.
So here’s the real question: what’s not working in your hiring process right now? Get in touch and tell us, or learn more about our RPO services first if you’d rather look before you talk.
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