How We Delivered a Full ATS Implementation at Record Speed

This guest post comes from HIGHER Member and T100 Awardee Alex Stone, Head of Talent, Culture & Engagement at The Adaptavist Group.

When faced with an outdated ATS, Alex and her team set out to replace it in just six weeks. The sprint transformed how they hire, collaborate, and deliver at speed. Keep reading to learn how they made it happen and what they learned along the way.

By: Alex Stone, Head of Talent, Culture & Engagement at The Adaptavist Group

Across the industry, talent teams are being asked to do more with less. Budgets are tighter, hiring is slower, and expectations for data and efficiency are higher than ever.

For us, that reality hit earlier this year. Our ATS was no longer keeping up with how we needed to work. We’d already shifted toward a more proactive approach — building pipelines, nurturing communities, and engaging talent before a role existed — but our systems were still built for transactional hiring.

We decided to act quickly and replace our ATS. The challenge was to do it in six weeks.

Why We Needed to Change

Our existing ATS had reached its limit. For a complex, multi-brand organisation, it simply couldn’t mirror the way our business was structured. Recruiters were relying on spreadsheets, workarounds, and manual reporting. Searching or nurturing candidates was slow and inefficient, and reporting required hours of data manipulation outside the platform.

We wanted a system that could handle multiple workflows, automate repetitive steps, and give us visibility across teams. Most importantly, we wanted technology that supported proactive hiring instead of holding it back.

Choosing the Right Platform

We shortlisted two leading providers (Greenhouse and SmartRecruiters) and built testing scenarios based on real recruiter workflows and scenarios, rather than product demos. My direct reports led the testing, which helped us evaluate usability, configurability, and reporting through the lens of day-to-day hiring activity.

Several factors shaped our decision-making:

• Configurability: We needed a system flexible enough to reflect different entities, brands, and workflows, and to keep evolving as the business grows.

• Candidate experience: Each brand needed its own identity within the hiring process, so candidates have a seamless, branded journey from first click to offer.

• Automation and scalability: The platform had to remove repetitive admin and support the team’s shift toward proactive, community-led hiring.

• Data and reporting: Insight was non-negotiable; we needed to move away from manual spreadsheets and towards live, business-ready dashboards.

SmartRecruiters ultimately met those needs most effectively and gave us the flexibility to configure for scale. Once the decision was finalised at the end of May, we moved straight into the six-week build and launch phase.

How We Delivered at Speed

The timeline was ambitious, so structure was essential. We appointed an internal project manager to coordinate across functions and created a detailed plan using monday.com to track progress.

Each of my direct reports owned a major workstream, from integrations and workflows to CRM and candidate communications, while weekly governance sessions and short daily stand-ups kept momentum.

We worked closely with our internal comms manager to build awareness and readiness across the business. Training dates and launch communications were agreed early and shared widely. Once those dates were public, there was no scope to move them.

It was a fast, focused six weeks where everyone understood their role, the timeline, and the goal.

Six Weeks at a Glance:

Week	Focus	Key Milestone
1	Kickoff & planning	Project board built; workstreams assigned
2–3	Core build	Integrations configured; workflows designed
4	Testing & validation	Recruiter UX testing and adjustments
5	Training & comms	Line manager sessions; go-live prep
6	Launch	System live; post-launch triage and optimisation

The Impact

The difference was immediate.

Early indications suggest a significant reduction in application-to-offer time— from an average of 27 days, dropping to 17 days since go live. Recruiters can now build targeted nurture campaigns directly within the system, feeding into a growing talent community that already accounts for 10% of all hires.

Hiring managers reported a smoother experience, and the team gained visibility they’d never had before. Dashboards now show live data by recruiter, department, and role — allowing us to identify bottlenecks and take action early.

The implementation also had a cultural impact. Delivering a project of this scale and speed increased confidence across the business in what the TA function can achieve. It strengthened relationships with senior stakeholders and raised the team’s profile company-wide.

Key Stat: Application-to-offer time reduced by nearly 40 % within two months of go-live

Lessons Learned

Working at this pace tested every aspect of delivery. The biggest learnings:

1. Clear accountability across workstreams was critical to keeping momentum and avoiding delays.

2. Early and transparent communication helped keep stakeholders aligned and confident in progress.

3. More time for testing would have allowed us to explore how people actually use the system in unexpected ways.

4. Framing the ATS as a business solution rather than a TA upgrade was key to securing wider support.

The project proved that when a team is empowered and trusted, ambitious goals become achievable.

Actionable Takeaways:

✅ Start with clear success measures. Define what “good” looks like early — speed, adoption, automation, or data visibility — so every decision ties back to outcomes.

✅ Run real-world testing. Build test scenarios based on your team’s actual workflows to see how each system performs under realistic pressure. Also, consider how users might use the platform in unexpected ways — try to break it! This helps identify weaknesses and usability issues before they happen in real use.

✅ Assign clear ownership. Split the project into defined workstreams (e.g. integrations, workflows, comms) and make one person accountable for each.

✅ Lock your timeline publicly. Once you communicate training and go-live dates, hold to them; it creates focus and credibility.

✅ Plan change management as seriously as the tech. Early engagement with hiring managers and strong internal comms make adoption smoother.

✅ Leave space for post-launch iteration. Expect small fixes and improvements once recruiters start using the platform — and resource that time upfront.

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