“It’s already so much better than Monday.”
Jemini replaced a patchwork of recruiting tools with a custom hiring system built on Airtable and Zite. Applications, interviews, referrals, and reporting now run through one workflow, giving recruiters a clear pipeline and leadership real visibility into hiring progress.
The problem
Jemini’s hiring process lived across several tools.
Applications came through forms. Candidate tracking happened in Monday.com. Interviews were scheduled through Calendly. Feedback arrived through email or Slack.
Nothing connected properly.
Recruiters spent too much time piecing together candidate histories. Interviewers often joined calls without enough context. Leadership had limited visibility into how roles were progressing.
As hiring volume increased, the cracks became obvious.
“The more I use Monday, the more I hate it.” — Eric
The team looked at traditional ATS products, but most would have required them to reshape their process around the software. That is a common problem when teams rely on tools that do not fit how they actually work. We wrote more about that in Build vs Rent when off-the-shelf software doesn’t fit how you work.
Jemini wanted the opposite. They wanted a system that reflected how their team already hired.
The approach
Instead of buying another platform, we built a recruiting system around their actual workflow.
Airtable acts as the operational database. Custom portals built with Zite handle the interfaces recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers actually use.
The goal was not to add more tools. The goal was to connect the right ones into a system the team could trust. As we often tell clients, you don’t need more tools, you need better systems.
Before building, we mapped the hiring process from first application to final decision. That is similar to the user story mapping approach we use for operational systems, where the workflow is clarified before software gets built around it.
What we built
Application intake
Candidates apply through role specific forms.
When someone submits an application, the system creates the application record, cleans and standardizes the candidate email, checks for duplicates, and links the application to an existing candidate profile if one already exists.
Recruiters get notified as new applications come in, so they can review them quickly without manual triage.
Candidate pipeline
All candidates live in one structured pipeline.
Recruiters can filter by role, solution area, level, and status. They can move candidates through hiring stages, add notes, and keep a record of communications without duplicating records or losing context.
This gave the team a much cleaner view of who was under consideration and what needed to happen next.
Shortlisting
Recruiters often need to prepare a focused group of candidates for hiring manager review.
The shortlisting tool lets them create lists tied to a specific requisition, add or remove candidates in bulk, and keep shortlist specific notes separate from permanent candidate notes.
Hiring managers can review candidates and respond with structured feedback, which makes handoff much faster and much easier to track.
“It’s already so much better than Monday.” — Dan
Interview workflow
Interview scheduling connects directly into the system.
When an interview is booked, records are created automatically, interviewers are assigned, and feedback flows are prepared in advance.
Interviewers access a dedicated portal where they can review candidate details, open the interview guide, and read relevant context before the call. After the interview, they submit structured feedback that feeds back into the hiring workflow.
Automations handle intake, deduplication, notifications, scheduling, and follow-up. The important part was reliability. These workflows needed to support live hiring, not create extra admin or break under pressure. We talk more about that in how to build automation systems that don’t break at 2 AM.
Internal referrals
Employees can submit referrals through an authenticated form.
The system captures the referrer automatically, checks whether the candidate already exists, and links the referral to that record when appropriate. Recruiters receive a Slack notification as soon as a new referral comes in.
This pulled referrals into the same workflow instead of leaving them scattered across inboxes and messages.
Reporting
Leadership dashboards provide a clear view of recruiting activity.
They can see pipeline health, source performance, and how long candidates spend in each interview stage. Because the workflow runs through a single system, reporting updates automatically instead of relying on manual spreadsheet work.
The outcome
Jemini now runs recruiting through one integrated platform.
Recruiters manage the pipeline without jumping between tools. Interviewers have the context they need before each conversation. Leadership can see how hiring is progressing in real time.
“If Monday.com disappeared right at this moment in time, we have everything we need in Castor.” — Dan
The result is a hiring system that fits the way the team works instead of forcing them into someone else’s process.
Start with a blueprint
If your hiring process feels fragmented, the first step is mapping the system before choosing more software.