Applicant Tracking & Recruiting Workflows
Every application becomes a case – whichever channel it arrives through – acknowledged within minutes, with a booking link instead of an email thread and rejections that do not sit unanswered. Who is suitable is still decided by your people.
The bottleneck is rarely the shortlist
Applications arrive from four directions: through the form on the careers page, through a job portal, as an email to somebody's personal address, and as a word-of-mouth referral passed on by a colleague. None of these routes is wrong, but none of them keeps a list. As long as one role is open and one person is screening, a spreadsheet carries the process. With three vacancies running at once and two people involved in each, the status of a candidate lives in an inbox, and anyone who wants to know it has to ask.
The real difficulty, though, is not collecting but handing over. Most of the days in a hiring process are spent between “HR has it” and “the hiring manager has read it” – the manager is on site or with a customer, and the application is an attachment in a forwarded email that carries no deadline. Seen from outside, nothing happens in that time: no interim message, no interview date, no named sender to chase. The candidates you lose are not the ones you turned down, but the ones who signed elsewhere while they were waiting.
So we measure the waiting time at each stage first and count applications second. An automation that sorts faster but leaves the handover to the department untouched only pushes the queue further back. What gets automated is everything around the decision: the intake, the acknowledgement, the deadline, the interview slot, the rejection and the deletion. The assessment itself stays with people – not out of caution, but because it cannot be written as a rule without losing exactly what matters.
Which vacancies are worth running this way
We start with the type of role you advertise most often and that has the clearest minimum criteria. Further roles later share the same intake and the same deadlines.
Ongoing vacancies for skilled staff
The most common starting point: fitters, care staff, schedulers, accounts. Few applications, each one counts – what decides the outcome is your response time, not pre-selection.
Apprenticeships and placements
Many applications within a few weeks, together with clear minimum criteria such as qualification, period and location. Here the workflow carries the volume, because the formal check is unambiguous.
Speculative applications
No vacancy, no case, no owner – which is why they stay in the inbox. With a case record and a talent pool they become findable again the next time you hire.
Temporary and seasonal staff
High volume, short decisions, often over the phone. What counts is being reachable: a slot offered the same day instead of a reply the following week.
Referrals from your own staff
Referred candidates come out of a conversation and rarely reach a system. With the source on the case record it stays traceable who referred whom and whether a bonus is due.
Several sites and recruitment agencies
The same person applies through two portals and an agency. Without duplicate detection you run three processes for one candidate – and send three different answers.
Where applications sit and wait
An example process for one vacancy: the funnel shows how many candidates pass each stage, how long they wait there and who makes the next move.
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Received
under 1 hour
52 acknowledged4 channels, 3 duplicates merged
Automatic. Acknowledgement with a named contact and a deadline you can keep. If a required detail is missing, it is chased once.
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HR screening
2 days
19 through33 rejected12 of them automatic
Person. HR checks the documents and the required details. A rejection only goes out automatically when a stated minimum requirement is missing.
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Hiring manager
6 days
longest wait
8 invited9 rejected2 withdrew
Person. The manager gets a task with a deadline, not a forwarded email: after 3 days the workflow reminds them, after 5 HR sees the overrun.
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Interview
4 days to the slot
3 shortlisted4 rejected1 withdrew
Automatic. A booking link built from the free time of everyone involved, plus invitation and reminder. The rejection after an interview is written by a person.
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Offer
5 days
1 hired1 rejected1 withdrew
Automatic. With the signature the closing rejection goes to every case still open, and onboarding starts.
Which rejections go out automatically
| Trigger | What happens | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum requirement missing | Standard rejection the next day, with a pointer to the talent pool. Applies only to details that are stated in the advert and asked for in the form. | automatic |
| Rejection after screening | The text is ready, HR releases them as a batch. One look at the list is enough, nothing has to be written. | sign-off |
| Rejection after an interview | Nothing. Anyone who came in gets a call or a message written by the hiring manager. | never automatic |
| Role has been filled | Closing rejection to every open case on that vacancy, on the day the contract is signed. | automatic |
Then the retention clock starts. Documents are deleted after the period agreed with you; only candidates who have explicitly agreed to join the talent pool are kept longer.
The third stage is the one that matters. Nobody there is waiting for the software to decide, they are waiting for a person – and that is exactly where you lose the candidates who are in conversation elsewhere.
Figures, deadlines and waiting times come from a single example vacancy and are set together with you. Which rejection goes out automatically and which one somebody signs is your decision, not the system's.
From application to decision
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Collect every application in one place
Careers form, application inbox, forwarded portal mails and referrals all run into one intake. Attachment and form become a case with role, source, contact details and consent; duplicates are spotted by email address and name and merged.
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Acknowledge receipt and check the documents
Within a few minutes an acknowledgement goes out – with a named contact and a deadline you can actually keep. If a required detail or a certificate is missing, the workflow chases it once instead of passing an incomplete application on.
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Hand over to the hiring manager
The manager gets a task with a deadline instead of a forwarded email: the CV, the minimum requirements from the advert and two buttons for interview or rejection. After three days without a response the workflow reminds them, after five the overrun appears on the HR overview.
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Offer a slot instead of negotiating one
As soon as the department says yes, the candidate gets a booking link showing the times that are genuinely free for everyone involved. Invitation, room or video link and reminder are created automatically; a cancellation releases the slot straight away.
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Decide, reject, delete
After the interview the feedback is captured in a structured form, so the decision does not sit in three inboxes. Standard rejections run to your rules, personal ones are prepared and sent by a person – and when the case closes, the retention clock starts.
What changes day to day
Today
- Applications sit in four inboxes and a spreadsheet
- Two weeks pass between receipt and the first reply
- The hiring manager gets an attachment, not a task
- Interview slots are found over several rounds of email
- Rejections are left lying, some never go out at all
With a guided process
- Every application is a case with role, source and status
- The acknowledgement goes out within minutes
- The manager has a task with a deadline and a reminder
- Candidates book slots that are genuinely free for everyone
- Standard rejections run, personal ones are ready to send
Where the process runs into its limits
Recruiting looks like a volume problem and is usually a decision problem. We clarify these four points before we quote:
- With only a handful of hires a year it does not pay off. If you fill two or three roles a year and get ten applications for each, you do not have a queue, you have a manageable task – and that does not need a €1,900 automation. The benefit starts with several vacancies running in parallel, or as soon as more than two people are involved in the process. Below that you are mainly buying a rule set that wants maintaining.
- Pre-selection by AI is not a decision. A language model can structure CVs, check the stated requirements and propose an order – it cannot judge whether somebody fits the team. The EU AI Act treats systems that filter applications or score candidates as high-risk, which brings obligations that increase the effort considerably. So we build the pre-sorting as a reasoned suggestion and never as an automatic rejection.
- The workflow cannot force a decision. A task with a deadline reminds, escalates and makes visible where something is stuck – the hiring manager still has to do the assessing. If screening stalls in the department, the automation only shows that more clearly than before. It is a management question, not a technical one, and it gets uncomfortable before it gets better.
- A fast process does not replace an attractive offer. If a vacancy draws three applications in a quarter, the bottleneck is visibility, pay, shift pattern or location – not the sequence of steps. We do not place adverts, we do not do active sourcing and we do not write your job ads. The automation only makes the real reason visible sooner.
Fits your HR work
Scope and price
The entry price covers one vacancy with your deadlines, texts and rejection rules. What moves the price, we say before the quote.
- One intake for every application channel, with duplicate detection
- A case per application: role, source, documents, consent, status
- Acknowledgement and a single chase for missing details
- Handover to the department as a task with deadline and reminder
- Slot booking with invitation, reminder and cancellation link
- Rejection templates with sign-off, closing rejection and retention deadlines
- Documentation, handover session and 30 days of support
What increases the price
- Several vacancies with their own minimum criteria and rejection texts
- Connection to an existing HR system instead of your own list
- AI-assisted pre-sorting with a reasoned order
- Several sites or legal entities with separate access rights
- Handover into hiring: draft contract, signature and onboarding start
Several vacancies, connecting an existing HR system and a reasoned pre-sorting typically land in the range of our Workflow Advanced package from €2,490. We quote the binding fixed price after the intro call.
All prices excl. VAT · operation and further development optionally via a support package
What you get
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Production applicant workflow
Set up from intake to rejection and run through with the applications from your last vacancy
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Overview with waiting times
Who is waiting where and since when – as a list HR can read without asking anyone
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Text blocks and rejection rules
Which rejection runs automatically and which one somebody signs, documented and changeable later
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Training for HR and hiring managers
How an application is handed over, what happens when a deadline passes and how somebody enters the talent pool
Frequently asked questions about applicant tracking
These solutions fit alongside
Automated Appointment Booking & Calendar Sync
Interview slots without the email thread: candidates book times that are free for everyone involved.
Automated Employee Onboarding
The step after the signature: accounts, equipment and induction sessions start on their own.
Approval Workflows in Microsoft 365
The step before: signing off a vacancy with budget and authorisation before the advert goes out.
Automated Employee Offboarding
The same deadline logic at the other end: revoke access, reclaim devices, keep the records.
How long does an application wait with you?
In the free intro call we go through your last vacancy: how many applications came in, how long each stage took and at which point candidates dropped out. Afterwards you know whether your bottleneck is in the process – or somewhere else.
Book a free intro callWhere automated applicant tracking creates value in everyday work
Applications are captured centrally, moved transparently through the process and supported with coordinated communication and scheduling.
Three concrete operating scenarios to compare with your own process.Capture complete applications
Documents, role, source and consent are assigned to one clear application record.
Coordinate interviews
Availability, participants, invitations and reminders are organised together.
Make communication reliable
Receipt, status and next steps are communicated consistently and on time.
A strong fit when …
People-related tasks repeat, several teams are involved, and deadlines or access rights must be coordinated transparently.
- You handle recurring application tasks using repeatable rules.
- The intake, target system and accountable business role can be named clearly.
- Exceptions are allowed to remain visible and move to people deliberately.
Deliberate automation boundary
Suitability decisions, sensitive assessment and rejection reasons remain with trained people; AI may only structure and prepare.
Explore the technical approach and platformsEstimate time savings with your own volume
The calculator uses 12 minutes today and 3 minutes after automation as fixed example assumptions. It does not replace process analysis.
Illustrative estimate based on the visible assumptions — not a guarantee.