For over 16 years I worked in the Talent Acquisition industry and during that time I used various Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). For a long time I’ve thought about creating my own ATS, but these are very complex systems and I knew I needed to wait until the moment was right. Since I’m currently in between full time jobs, now is probably one of the best times I’ll ever have to start a project like this. So, I did.
It’s not just any old ATS. I knew that I wanted to do something different. I also knew that “different” would not mean building a normal ATS and slapping some AI features on it.
I thought about recruiter pain points and although there are many, I settled on building the ATS around gamification. It can be tedious reviewing thousands of applicants. I figure you might as well have some fun. The more motivation you can get as a recruiter, the better.
As I started building the ATS I immediately knew that recruiters would earn points for different actions. Also, as I got started I was thinking about what to name this project. I quickly settled on naming it after Ada Lovelace, a pioneering mathematician who wrote the first published computer algorithm. Around the same time I also knew that I wanted a retro, old, black and green computer game UI.
Ada is built out enough now that people can start testing it. Click here and you’ll see usernames and a password at the top. Before logging in though you can read all about Ada on the same page.
Yes, you do need WordPress. But, you can download WordPress and run it anywhere for free. Then, you would simply install Ada as a new theme. Don’t let “theme” fool you though. This is a complex, feature rich ATS! Ada has resume parsing, skills extraction, and many ways to customize the application form, requisition creation form, statuses, and more.
The most recent addition that I made before publishing the demo is “game mode.” The entire ATS has a points system and recruiters can cash in the points for something; whatever the company decides. But in addition to that, I decided to start building a full game mode. In game mode you hear music, and you see an office building and your candidates scattered about. You select one of the candidates, review them and “chat” with them in a simulated chat. The simulated chat moves the candidate through the real ATS steps, depending on the replies you choose. They get closer to the building the farther along in the process they get.
You can fully disable this game mode in case that’s a little too much for you or your company.
I’m excited to continue to perfect the current ATS features and then hopefully add more. Maybe I’ll start getting some feedback which will influence new features or changes. The very last feature that will be added, if added at all, would be LLM AI grading/ranking. If this is added it would definitely be an add-on and easily disabled if desired.
Since I haven’t robustly tested everything yet, it’s not yet available for purchase, but that’s the plan. I’m thinking it will be a one-time fee, (like the old days of software) and possibly a little extra if you need me to install it and/or need ongoing support.
I’m having fun and keeping busy. And that’s a good thing.
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