• Running candidate tracking in the ATS but capturing interview feedback in email and offer approvals in a separate system because the ATS workflow doesn't match your process?

  • ATS that works for your head office hiring but can't handle the volume, the employment types, or the compliance requirements of your other business units?

Applicant Tracking System Development

Off-the-shelf ATS platforms are built for a standard recruiting funnel. When your hiring process has unusual approval chains, multi-stage structured interviews, compliance requirements, or integration needs that the platform can't model cleanly, you end up building workarounds in spreadsheets alongside the ATS you're paying for.

We build custom applicant tracking systems designed around how your recruiting team actually works -- your interview stages, your scorecard framework, your offer approval chain, and your HRMS. No modules you don't use. No workarounds for hiring processes the vendor didn't anticipate.

  • Job requisition management with approval workflows, headcount budget controls, and position tracking against your hiring plan

  • Candidate pipeline with configurable stages, interview scheduling, structured scorecards, and feedback collection in one place

  • Offer management with approval workflows, offer letter generation, and e-signature -- connected to your HRMS for confirmed hire data transfer

  • Job board integrations, sourcing analytics, and time-to-hire reporting built for your recruiting team structure

RaftLabs builds custom applicant tracking systems for businesses whose hiring volume, team structure, or compliance requirements don't fit what Greenhouse, Lever, or Workable were designed for. A custom ATS covers job requisition management, a candidate pipeline configured to your interview stages, structured interview and scorecard tools, offer approval workflows, and two-way integration with your HRMS and job boards. Most ATS projects deliver a production-ready system in 10 to 14 weeks at a fixed, agreed cost.

Vodafone
Aldi
Nike
Microsoft
Heineken
Cisco
Calorgas
Energia Rewards
GE
Bank of America
T-Mobile
Valero
Techstars
East Ventures
100+Software products shipped
24+Industries served
FixedCost delivery
10-14Week delivery cycles

When your hiring process outgrows an off-the-shelf ATS

Standard ATS platforms cover the most common recruiting workflows well. Problems appear when your process diverges -- unusual approval hierarchies, compliance requirements for regulated industries, structured interview frameworks that the platform's scorecard builder can't model, or hiring across multiple entities with different workflows per business unit. Customising a standard ATS to handle these cases means building workarounds that the recruiting team has to maintain manually alongside the system.

We build custom applicant tracking systems for businesses that need recruiting software designed around their actual hiring process, not adapted from a template. We have integrated with LinkedIn, Indeed, job boards across multiple markets, background check providers, and a range of HRMS platforms. When a full ATS replacement isn't right, we build the integration and workflow layer on top of what you have. When replacement is the right call, we scope it so you go live on the core pipeline first and extend from there.

What we build

Job requisition management

Job requisition workflow from the hiring manager's initial request through finance and HR approval to the live job posting -- the full approval chain configured to your organisation's headcount governance requirements. Position tracking against your hiring plan and approved headcount budget so HR always knows which roles are funded, which are in approval, and which are open for candidates. Requisition details flowing automatically to the job posting -- title, salary band, location, employment type, and job description -- so there is no manual data re-entry between the approval and the posting. Requisition history for audit and workforce planning, with the time spent in each approval stage recorded for process improvement.

Candidate pipeline management

Pipeline view configured to your interview stages rather than a generic five-stage funnel. Each stage has the actions relevant to it -- screening call scheduling, assignment sending, interview scheduling, reference check initiation -- available directly from the candidate card. Bulk actions for high-volume roles where recruiters need to move or communicate with multiple candidates simultaneously. Candidate status visible to the hiring manager in their own view without giving them access to recruiter-only data. Pipeline velocity reporting showing how long candidates spend at each stage, where drop-off is highest, and how the current pipeline converts against historical benchmarks.

Structured interview tools

Interview scorecards configured to your competency framework -- the specific competencies assessed at each interview stage, the rating scale used by your organisation, and any mandatory questions required for compliance or consistency. Interview guides for each stage and role type, accessible to the interviewer before the interview and in the feedback form after it. Feedback collection with a structured form that prevents interviewers from seeing each other's feedback before they submit their own. Aggregate feedback view for the hiring manager and recruiter showing all interview scores and comments in one place after the feedback window closes. Calibration functionality for roles where the panel needs to discuss assessments before making a decision.

Offer management and e-signature

Offer generation from a template library configured to your employment contracts -- the fields populated from the candidate and requisition records, the offer letter produced without manual editing for standard offers. Offer approval workflow routing the offer terms to the appropriate approvers before it is sent to the candidate -- compensation, role title, start date, and any non-standard terms reviewed by HR, finance, or legal depending on the seniority of the role. E-signature with a tracked signing link sent to the candidate and co-signed by the authorised signatory in your organisation. Offer acceptance triggering the pre-boarding workflow and the HRMS record creation so the candidate moves from hired to onboarding without a manual handoff.

Job board and sourcing integrations

Job posting to multiple job boards from a single form -- LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and specialist boards for your industry -- with the application tracking the source so every candidate in the pipeline has a recorded origin. Career site integration so applications made directly through your own website arrive in the ATS in the same format as job board applications, with the same pipeline and workflow. Sourcing analytics at the role level: which channels produce candidates who reach the interview stage, which produce candidates who accept offers, and which cost the most per successful hire. Referral programme management where employee referrals are submitted through the ATS, tracked against the referring employee, and flagged for priority screening.

Reporting and compliance

Time-to-hire and time-to-fill at the role, team, department, and hiring manager level -- the data your HR leadership needs to assess recruiting capacity and identify bottlenecks. Source-of-hire analysis with cost-per-hire calculated against your sourcing spend per channel. Pipeline conversion rates at each stage for each role type and team, so recruiters can see where their process is losing candidates and adjust. Diversity reporting on application, interview, and offer outcomes by the demographic dimensions your organisation tracks -- with the data structured to support your D&I reporting requirements. GDPR and data retention compliance with candidate data deletion after the configured retention period and a data access log for subject access requests.

Frequently asked questions

Standard ATS platforms handle the common recruiting workflow well and are the right choice for most businesses at most stages. Custom becomes the right answer when your process has requirements the platform can't model without significant workarounds -- a multi-entity business where different business units have different approval chains and pipeline stages, regulated industries with specific compliance documentation requirements for every hire, or businesses that need their ATS to integrate with internal systems the standard platform has no connector for. The other common driver is cost: at scale, ATS licensing can become a significant line item, and a custom build owned outright is often cheaper over a five-year horizon.

Yes. HRMS integration is typically the most important integration in an ATS build -- confirmed hires need to move from offer-accepted to employee record without manual data re-entry, and any change to the employee record during onboarding should not require duplicate updates. We build the integration to your specific HRMS using its API or file-based exchange where an API is not available. Job board integrations use the standard APIs provided by LinkedIn, Indeed, and the other boards in scope. The integration specification is documented before development starts so you know what data flows where before any code is written.

We implement your competency framework and rating scale into the scorecard builder during the design phase -- the specific competencies assessed at each interview stage, the anchored rating descriptions your organisation uses, and any mandatory questions required for consistency across interviewers. Where your organisation uses a validated psychometric or structured interview framework, we implement the administration and scoring rules for that framework. The interview guide is linked to the scorecard so the interviewer sees the questions they should ask alongside the form where they record their ratings. Aggregate scores are calculated automatically and displayed to the hiring manager after all feedback is submitted, without interviewers being able to see each other's responses before they submit their own.

A focused ATS build -- pipeline management, interview scheduling, structured scorecards, and offer management for a single business unit -- typically runs $30,000 to $60,000 depending on scope and integrations. A full ATS with multi-entity support, job board integrations, HRMS integration, referral programme management, and advanced reporting runs $60,000 to $120,000. We scope every project before pricing it so you know what you are getting before you commit. Fixed cost only -- no hourly billing.

Related HR software

Talk to us about your ATS project.

Tell us where your current hiring process breaks down and what your recruiting team has to work around. We'll scope an ATS built around your actual workflow and give you a fixed price.