An Applicant Tracking System that fits your recruitment workflow, not the other way around. We build custom ATS platforms for recruitment and staffing agencies, RPO providers, HR departments handling high vacancy volumes, and industry associations that want to run their own candidate marketplace.
The Dutch and international ATS market is thoroughly served by packages such as Bullhorn, Connexys, Homerun, Recruitee, Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and AFAS. For commodity recruitment we honestly recommend those packages too: they do what they promise, integrate with the well-known job boards and can be connected to most HRIS stacks within a few weeks.
Custom ATS development only becomes relevant once your recruitment workflow meaningfully deviates from what packaged software covers. In our experience that happens with sector-specific recruitment (healthcare, legal, IT staffing, executive search), white-label platforms for cooperatives or franchise networks, deep integrations across several systems at once (HRIS plus payroll plus assessment plus e-signing plus client portal), AI-augmented matching that goes beyond keyword search, and Dutch-specific compliance requirements such as the Wbp staffing collective agreement or the AI Act for HR applications.
We have been building recruitment software since 2015 and know the difference between "the package is nearly right" and "we genuinely need something of our own". In that first conversation we'll be honest about which route fits. Often a good package plus a few targeted integrations is enough, and fully custom software is an expensive detour. When it is needed, we build an ATS that fits into how you actually work, rather than sitting awkwardly alongside it.
Our clients are temporary employment and secondment agencies, executive search firms, RPO providers who want to run their own platform for their clients, HR departments of medium-sized and large organisations with a continuous pipeline, industry associations with their own vacancy bank, and HR tech start-ups that want to offer their own proposition instead of a resold off-the-shelf package. The common thread: the recruitment workflow itself is part of their value and cannot simply be swapped for a SaaS licence.
In our experience, building a custom ATS is rarely a replacement decision and almost always an investment in ownership. You decide the data model, the integration lines, the pace of change and how AI components are used. With a SaaS ATS those choices are tied to the vendor's roadmap; with custom software they follow your own market developments. That difference is what turns recruitment from a cost line into a proposition.
Depending on your scale, the number of brands or sectors, and how deep the integrations with your HRIS, job boards and assessment tools need to go. We determine which flavour fits in the first conversation.
An applicant tracking system with a recruitment workflow tailored to one clear niche: healthcare recruitment with BIG registration checks, legal recruitment with bar requirements, IT staffing with technical assessments, or executive search with confidential candidate lists. Its own career site, candidate database with CV parsing, and vacancy management pushed to the common job boards and LinkedIn.
For recruitment agencies with multiple brands, cooperatives with affiliated offices, and franchise models that each want to keep their own corporate identity and candidate data. One platform, multiple tenants, a shared talent pool where that makes sense, and separation where it's needed. Branded career sites per brand, role management per organisation, and reporting at group and brand level.
Mission-critical ATS for RPO providers, large employers with a continuous pipeline and industry associations with their own job board. Deep integrations with your HRIS, payroll system, assessment platforms, e-signing and a dedicated client portal. AI-augmented matching, talent pool management at scale, and a GDPR and AI Act flow that your data protection officer can audit.
The modules that feature in almost every ATS project. Not all of them in the first phase, but all visible in the roadmap we draw up together.
Four patterns we recognise in a first conversation. If one or more apply to your situation, we would be glad to talk further.
Your recruitment has requirements that a commodity ATS cannot be configured for: BIG checks in healthcare, bar registration in legal recruitment, technical skills assessments in IT staffing, or confidentiality in executive search. The package forces you into a straitjacket that doesn't fit.
You serve multiple affiliated organisations or labels that each want their own branding, their own candidate data and their own reporting, but within a single platform and on shared infrastructure. Standard packages don't support this, or only at the cost of an explosion in licence fees.
Your ATS needs to keep pace with your HRIS, payroll, assessment platform, e-signing and client portal, and standard connectors cover perhaps half of that. The integration space determines the value, and packaged products keep that space closed.
You want to use AI for matching and screening, but in a form that is explainable, can be audited by your data protection officer, and complies with the AI Act for HR applications. A closed-off SaaS score doesn't meet that standard.
Before we recommend custom development, we look at what already exists. Bullhorn is strong in staffing and temping, with deep configurability across pipeline and invoicing. Connexys, part of the Salesforce ecosystem, wins where Salesforce is already the operational core. Homerun targets fast-growing scale-ups with a strong employer brand. Recruitee serves small to mid-sized employers with a user-friendly careers site flow. Workday and SAP SuccessFactors compete in the enterprise segment, where HRIS and ATS are brought into a single suite. AFAS Recruitment suits organisations that already run their payroll and HR administration in AFAS.
Which you choose isn't a question of the "best ATS" but of fit with your recruitment workflow, your HRIS stack and your scale. A package that fits well often covers eighty to ninety per cent of the need; the last part is then solved with configuration and targeted integrations. For clients who want us to guide them through that, we don't build a new ATS at all. We connect integrations to their choice, in a way that doesn't break the package. A Bullhorn integration or a Connexys integration costs a fraction of a replacement project and often delivers more.
We reserve fully custom development for situations where the deviation is fundamental and cannot be closed through configuration. These are the scenarios from the previous section: sector-specific compliance, multi-tenant white-labelling, deep integrations with several systems at once, and AI-augmented matching with explainability requirements. Outside those scenarios, we honestly advise sticking with a package, even if that means the conversation is shorter than you expected.
Four compliance domains that we explicitly address in every ATS project, not as an afterthought appendix but as a design decision from the first sprint.
An ATS inherently holds a lot of personal data, often about people who are no longer (or never were) employed by you. Retention is set per candidate role rather than as one global period. Right-to-erasure requests follow a controlled processing path with an audit trail.
For recruitment applications, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) focuses on profiling, automated decision-making and the minimum necessary use of data. We build the ATS so that your data protection officer can see, at any time, which data is processed, for which vacancy, and on what basis.
Temporary staffing and secondment agencies have differing retention periods for candidate and assignment data. The ATS applies those periods automatically, so manual clean-up isn't needed, and you can demonstrably stay compliant during an audit.
The European AI Act classifies AI applications in HR recruitment as high-risk. This brings requirements around risk management, data quality, transparency, human oversight and logging. We build those requirements in from the matching architecture onwards, rather than documenting them afterwards.
A conversation to understand which recruitment flow the ATS needs to support, which parties connect to it, and what compliance applies. At the end, you'll hear an honest view on whether custom development fits, or whether a good package with a few integrations would make more sense.
A workshop with your recruitment team and interviews with a handful of candidates and clients. The outcome: a concrete scope, a tiered breakdown of the modules, and the first screen flow for the most critical role.
A working build every sprint, on your staging environment, for your recruiters and a selected group of candidates to review. The first tier goes live in production after a few sprints, often running alongside your existing package so you can switch over at your own pace.
A phased rollout across roles, labels or clients, with training sessions and a runbook for your IT team. Followed by ongoing maintenance covering security updates, job board API changes, AI Act compliance checks and targeted further development.
What clients typically want to know before we start.
A half-hour introductory call, entirely without obligation. We listen to your recruitment workflow, ask about your labels, clients and compliance requirements, and give direction that is useful to you — even if the answer is that a good package plus a few integrations is more sensible than fully custom development.
If you'd like to explore this topic more broadly, you'll find a page on applatenmaken.com about What an ATS does and when you need one.
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