Recruiting in small teams - without drowning in tools

Three tools. One - post a job, collect applications, sort. That's an ATS. Two - communicate with candidates in a consistent voice. That's three email templates. Three - schedule interviews, gather notes, decide. That's a scorecard system. If your ATS does all three, you need exactly one more tool: a calendar. Three tools, no stack.

What you don't need: sourcing tools, AI recruiter bots, separate CRMs for 'talent relationship management'. These make sense for 1,000-person TA functions. With 8 roles a year they slow you down.

Three tools, one person. The person doing recruiting knows each tool deeply - but no one else knows how they connect. Result: when that person is sick or leaves, recruiting collapses. So in small teams, tool selection is also a bus-factor question.

The fix isn't 'document more' but 'pick simpler tools'. If your office manager can drag an application into the pipeline without training, you've picked the right tool.

Setup A - Bootstrap (1-3 roles/year): KI BMS Free + a careers page (static or Notion) + a mail inbox. Plenty for the first two years.

Setup B - Growing (4-15 roles/year): KI BMS Basis + LinkedIn account + standard calendar. Three email templates, KI pre-sort on, done.

Setup C - Established (15-50 roles/year): KI BMS Power + LinkedIn Recruiter + Indeed sponsoring + hiring-manager seats. Multi-voice scorecards on, referral bounty in place, monthly reporting cadence.

Personio. You don't need it until 30+ employees - HR suite features can ride on Excel + DATEV until then, and Personio's setup cost only pays off at 30+. Sourcing platforms like HireEZ. ATS add-ons for diversity tracking. Bespoke candidate-relationship CRMs.