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How a 140-person property management company moved off spreadsheets and a legacy ATS in 5 weeks.
Skillfi cleaned 18,000 candidate records, rebuilt hiring around each role type and ran both systems side by side, so the switch happened without a single day of hiring downtime. It's the same process behind our ATS selection and setup service.
A smart-building company, still hiring out of spreadsheets.
The company runs app-managed residential communities where residents sign leases, pay rent and book repairs from their phones. Hiring was the one part of the business that hadn't caught up. With 30 to 40 roles to fill every month across leasing, maintenance and community management, candidates were scattered across an old applicant tracking system the team had outgrown, shared spreadsheets for each property and managers' inboxes.
The same applicant showed up three times under three spellings. Good leasing agents went quiet because nobody owned the follow-up, and leadership had no reporting on where candidates came from or where they dropped out. In peak leasing season, every slow hire meant tours without an agent and work orders without a technician.
Our residents can book a repair in ten seconds. Our managers couldn't find a candidate's resume.
COO, client
Migrate the hiring process, not just the data.
Moving messy data into a new tool only gives you a more expensive mess. We cleaned first, rebuilt the workflows around how each team actually hires, and planned the cutover so hiring never stopped. The new system was also set up ready for a later HRIS integration.
18,000 records, de-duplicated
We merged duplicates across the old ATS, spreadsheets and inboxes, archived stale applicants and tagged every record by property, role and source.
Stages built for each role type
Leasing, maintenance and community management each got their own pipeline, scorecards and email templates, with every job board reconnected to the new system.
A 10-day parallel run
Both systems ran side by side while 9 hiring managers were trained, so no open role or active candidate was dropped in the switch.
Five weeks, week by week
From three disconnected systems to one clean ATS, with hiring running the whole time. Here's how the migration unfolded.
- Week 13 sources mapped
Audit & data map
We mapped every place candidates lived and defined field mapping and duplicate rules before moving a single record.
- Week 1–218,000 records
Clean-up & de-duplication
Duplicates merged, stale applicants archived and every record tagged by property, role and source.
- Week 2–33 role tracks
Workflows rebuilt
Separate pipelines, scorecards and templates for leasing, maintenance and community management roles.
- Week 3Boards moved
Job boards & careers page
Every job board and the careers page were reconnected, so new applicants landed straight in the new system.
- Week 49 managers trained
Training & parallel run
Hiring managers were trained role by role while both systems ran side by side for 10 days.
- Week 50 days downtime
Cutover & go-live
The legacy ATS and spreadsheets were retired. Every open role and active candidate was live in one place.
Four phases from three messy systems to one clean ATS
Most ATS migrations fail at the edges: bad data, skipped training and a hard cutover. The playbook was built to close each of those gaps.
Audit
- Data map of all 3 sources
- Field mapping to the new ATS
- Duplicate & archive rules
Clean
- 18,000 records de-duplicated
- Stale applicants archived
- Property, role & source tags
Build
- Stages for each role type
- Scorecards & email templates
- Job boards & careers page
Launch
- 9 hiring managers trained
- 10-day parallel run
- Cutover checklist signed off
90 days after go-live
Average time-to-hire
12 days faster from application to accepted offer.
We switched systems in the middle of leasing season and didn't lose a single week of hiring. Now every manager works from the same pipeline.
Head of People, clientOutgrown your ATS, or still hiring from spreadsheets?
We'll audit where your candidates live today, plan a clean move to the right ATS and get it ready for your HRIS, without pausing a single open role. Short on recruiting capacity during the switch? A fractional recruiter can keep hiring moving.
- A data audit & clean-up plan
- Workflows rebuilt for each role type
- A parallel run with zero hiring downtime
- Hiring manager training & reporting
30 minutes. No obligation.
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