Brázda - Applicant Tracking System for High-Volume Hourly Hiring
Applicant Tracking for a Slovak Retail and Logistics Group
Designed and built a clickable applicant tracking system for a Bratislava retail and logistics group that hires about 3,500 store, warehouse and driver staff a year: a hiring dashboard, jobs with pay ranges on every posting, a per-job pipeline board with no ranking or AI sort, candidate profiles with consent and retention, and a knockout review where a person confirms every rejection.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Dashboard, jobs, job pipeline with board and table views, candidates with the full candidate profile in 5 tabs, and the knockout review queue.
A failed knockout question moves the candidate to a review column. A recruiter confirms the rejection, which names the unmet requirement, or overrides it with a written reason.
Every demo job shows its pay in EUR per hour or per month, from 5,80 € / h for store assistants to 2 900 € / month at head office. No knockout question asks about previous pay.
14 jobs across 11 stores, distribution centres, a transport depot and head office, 3 pipeline templates (hourly, driver, salaried), 11 knockout questions and applicants writing in Slovak, Hungarian and Ukrainian.
The Problem
Borovina recruited through three disconnected routes: paper notices in shop windows with CVs kept in a drawer, job board replies collected in shared regional mailboxes, and head-office hiring through an agency and email. Hourly applicants were asked to email a CV most of them did not have, nobody knew how many vacancies were open or which job board produced hires, rejected candidates' CVs were never deleted, and peak season routinely started with 400 unfilled store and warehouse roles.
Our Solution
Brázda takes a hire from requisition to signed offer in one system. Recruiters see open jobs and headcount by region, work each job on a pipeline board sorted by date applied, open a candidate's answers, consent and retention date in one profile, and confirm or override every knockout result by hand, with pay ranges, permitted questions and retention rules built into the product.
The Challenge: High-Volume Hiring Inside EU and Slovak Rules
Most of Borovina's 3,500 hires a year are hourly store assistants, warehouse operatives and drivers who apply on a phone, often without a CV. Every step of hiring them is shaped by EU and Slovak law on data, discrimination, pay and automated decisions.
Applicants Without a CV
Warehouse and store candidates were asked to email a CV, and many gave up. Hourly roles need a mobile apply flow that takes under 3 minutes, with the CV optional, while salaried roles still need a full application.
No Single View of Hiring
Store managers, regional HR teams and head office each recruited their own way. Nobody could see how many vacancies were open, how long they had been open or which job board produced hires, so peak season from October started already behind.
Pay and Questions Now Regulated
Under the EU Pay Transparency Directive and the Slovak Equal Pay Act, in force from 7 June 2026, applicants must be told the starting pay or its range before the interview and cannot be asked about previous pay. The Slovak Labour Code generally bars questions about pregnancy, family, political affiliation, union membership and religion.
Fair Screening and Data Kept Too Long
GDPR Article 22 limits decisions based solely on automated processing, and the EU AI Act generally classes AI that filters or evaluates candidates as high-risk. Rejected CVs were kept indefinitely, and equal opportunity answers need explicit consent under GDPR Article 9 and must never reach a hiring decision.
Our Approach: From Hiring Rules to a Clickable ATS
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 10 user roles, from recruiters and phone-first hiring managers to the privacy officer, a restricted equal opportunity analyst and candidates with no password, and 44 screens: 36 staff screens and 8 careers site and candidate screens. Defined the data model for requisitions, jobs, postings, versioned questions, candidates, consents, applications, interviews, scorecards, offers, background checks and retention runs. Wrote down the rules the design follows: GDPR and the Slovak Data Protection Act, the Slovak Labour Code, the Anti-discrimination Act, the EU Pay Transparency Directive and the Slovak Equal Pay Act, the EU AI Act and the EU driver CPC rules.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: the dashboard with KPIs, headcount to fill by region, applications per day, My work and Needs attention; the jobs table with candidates per stage and channels posted; the job pipeline with board and table views, a candidate quick view, Move stage with the Offer entry rule enforced, and a Reject modal; the candidate profile with applications, consent and retention, right to work, and tabs for the application, interviews and scorecards, messages, offer and checks, and activity; and the knockout review with confirm, override, suggest another job and bulk confirm. All data is seeded mock data shaped like the spec.
What a Production Build Adds
Integration with Profesia.sk, LinkedIn Jobs, Indeed and the ÚPSVaR vacancy portal, a background check provider such as HireRight or Sterling, Twilio for SMS and WhatsApp, Postmark or SendGrid email, Microsoft 365 calendar and Teams, DocuSign for offer letters, the HRIS hand-off webhook and staff sign-in with Microsoft Entra ID. A tamper-evident audit log, retention runs that need a second approver, a separate store for equal opportunity answers, and the remaining screens: requisitions, job setup, talent pools, interviews and scorecards, offers, background checks, new hires, privacy, reports, settings and the mobile-first careers site and candidate hub.
Why It Works: People Decide, the Rules Are Built In
A Person Confirms Every Rejection
Knockout questions are fixed rules written by a person. A candidate who fails one lands in knockout review, which shows the question, their answer and the rule. Confirm rejection sends a message naming the unmet requirement, Override needs a reason, and Suggest another job looks for nearby roles they qualify for.
No Score, No Ranking
The pipeline is sorted by date applied, with no match score, ranking or AI sort. Cards show source, days in stage (amber after 3 days, red after 5), the knockout result and the scorecard recommendation, and a candidate cannot move to Offer without at least one submitted scorecard.
Built for Hourly Applicants
Quick apply needs no CV, and the profile shows how long each application took on which device, such as 3.1 minutes on a phone. Messages go by SMS, WhatsApp or email in the candidate's language, and the dashboard flags hourly jobs open over 30 days and salaried jobs over 60.
Privacy on Every Profile
Each candidate shows the lawful basis, the privacy notice version they saw, talent pool consent and the scheduled deletion date. Right to work is a single answer, with documents checked at onboarding, and the profile holds no date of birth, nationality, photo, pay history or equal opportunity answers.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
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Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab