Staffing & RecruitmentRegional staffing firm, ~250 internal employees

Rebuilding the candidate pipeline for a regional staffing firm

An anonymized engagement replacing a stitched-together ATS, spreadsheet, and inbox pipeline with a governed candidate operations platform.

Tools / product used · Vestval People + Vestval Flow

Challenge

Recruiters ran the pipeline across an aging ATS, three spreadsheets per desk, and personal email. Submittal quality varied by recruiter,…

Solution

Vestval People as the system of record for candidates, submittals, and placements. Vestval Flow agents for resume parsing, qualification…

Architecture

We shadowed two desks for a week, mapped what good recruiters actually do versus what the ATS tracks, then designed a thin operating layer…

Timeline

4-phase implementation · Vestval People + Vestval Flow

Impact

Single live view of pipeline for recruiters, desk managers, and leadership

Challenge

Recruiters ran the pipeline across an aging ATS, three spreadsheets per desk, and personal email. Submittal quality varied by recruiter, client SLAs were missed silently, and leadership had no live view of throughput.

Objectives

Unify candidate, submittal, and placement data in one operating system
Lift submittal-to-interview conversion through consistent screening
Give desk managers and leadership a live throughput view
Automate the highest-volume admin without replacing recruiter judgment

Approach

We shadowed two desks for a week, mapped what good recruiters actually do versus what the ATS tracks, then designed a thin operating layer on Vestval People with AI-assisted screening triage on Vestval Flow — leaving the recruiter in control at every meaningful step.

Solution

Vestval People as the system of record for candidates, submittals, and placements. Vestval Flow agents for resume parsing, qualification triage, and outbound sequencing — every output reviewed by the recruiter before it goes to the client.

Implementation approach

1
Desk shadowing and baseline
Two desks shadowed for a week, plus six months of historical pipeline data analyzed to find the actual conversion levers.
2
Operating model before tooling
Defined what a good submittal looks like and what leadership needs weekly — before configuring a single field.
3
AI in the assist seat
Screening triage and sequence drafting on Vestval Flow, surfaced to recruiters as suggestions — never auto-sent.
4
Phased desk rollout
Rolled out desk-by-desk with the old ATS kept read-only for thirty days at each desk.

Technologies used

Vestval People
Vestval Flow
Resume parsing pipeline
Sequence drafting agent
Pipeline analytics
ATS migration tooling

Outcomes

Single live view of pipeline for recruiters, desk managers, and leadership
Submittal quality lifted measurably through consistent screening
Recruiter admin time materially reduced — more candidate conversations per week
Client SLAs visible and trending instead of discovered at QBR

Lessons learned

Shadow good recruiters before configuring an ATS — what they actually do isn't in the field list.
AI in the assist seat outperforms AI in the driver's seat for relationship work.
Keep the old system read-only for thirty days; it removes political resistance to rollout.