Stop letting your tech stack dictate how you recruit

Recruitment teams have never had more technology at their fingertips. From end-to-end platforms to AI scheduling tools, CRM overlays and branded assessment platforms, we’re swimming in solutions.

But there’s a problem no one talks about enough: most recruitment tech stacks are bloated.

The market has convinced us we need more than we do. And in doing so, we’ve started designing our processes around the limitations of tools, not the needs of our people, teams or businesses.

When that happens, recruitment becomes reactive. We adapt to the quirks of the software instead of asking bigger questions. Why do we recruit this way? What do we want the experience to feel like? What actually works for our business?

Tools should enable great recruitment. Not define it.

How to take control of your recruitment systems

Before you add another platform to your stack (or renew something out of habit) pause and take stock. Your recruitment process should be shaped by your organisation’s unique needs. Not what your ATS allows. Not what the integration supports. And definitely not what a vendor roadmap promises.

Here’s what a thoughtful approach to tech looks like:

  • Start with your values and candidate experience, build backwards from there
  • Identify where your team genuinely needs to be more effective, be brutally honest
  • Remove tools that add complexity without clear ROI, be ruthless
  • Adapt processes around the outcomes you want, not features
  • Explore customisation or in-house builds where possible, we love this approach at August and it’s proven to be incredibly valuable.
  • Prioritise tools that offer adaptability over ones that force standardisation

And most importantly, ask this: “if I stripped it all away tomorrow, could we still recruit well?”

If the answer is no, you have a capability issue. If the answer is yes, you have an opportunity to streamline.

Sometimes, less really is more

At a time when tech is advancing rapidly, it’s tempting to keep adding. But the most future-ready teams I know are doing the opposite. They’re auditing. They’re simplifying. They’re choosing tools that align with their process, not contorting their process to fit a platform.

They understand that great recruitment isn’t about toolkits. It’s about clarity of thought. About process discipline. About being intentional at every stage.

When you have that foundation, you don’t need six different logins and a browser full of tabs to deliver great work. You need clarity, consistency, and a handful of tools that make your life easier, not heavier.

It’s worth asking: how much of your current stack is supporting your goals? And how much of it is just noise?

Because the best tech doesn’t replace great recruiters. It frees them up to do more of what they’re best at, engaging humans, creating moments of delight (I’ll touch on this more next week) and influencing, not wrangling platforms.

If the tools you use aren’t doing that, then what are they doing?

It’s time to simplify. To strip things back. And to rebuild around how you want to recruit, not just how you’ve always done it.

 

Article By

Get more articles direct to your inbox

Upcoming Events

Long Lunch Series for Talent Leaders

Ongoing

Restaurant Bar
ATC2025 Annual Conference

28 & 29 October

TA Brew for Internal Talent Teams

Ongoing

You may also enjoy reading...

Skills-based recruitment has become increasingly popular in the last few years, and for a good reason. We are looking at a range of sizeable benefits that happen to be especially relevant in the world of the gig-economy upsurge and talent scarcity. After we finally admitted that the past does not necessarily define the future, and that lie detectors and psychological testing can predict one’s success only slightly better than astrology and fortune telling, many companies came to realise that when done right, skills-based recruitment is quite cost-effective. And indeed, what is there not to love?
For all the talk about candidate experience, most hiring processes are deeply transactional. Timelines blow out. Feedback is vague. Communication is automated. The human moments get lost in the workflow. When did we forget to just pick up the phone and have a chat? If I can leave you with anything this week, it’s this: phone before email.
Greenhouse has officially landed in Australia, opening a Sydney office to support its expanding client base. As hiring teams confront a surge in AI-generated candidate fraud, Greenhouse introduces “Real Talent” a new AI-enabled platform designed to detect fake applications, ensure candidate authenticity, and protect hiring quality across the recruitment process.