Most applicant tracking systems were built with one assumption: every organization hires the same way. That assumption falls apart quickly when you’re managing recruitment for a law firm’s graduate intake program alongside their administrative staff, or coordinating store-level hiring across hundreds of retail locations while maintaining centralized corporate recruitment.
I recently met with Peter Van Neste, CRO at Pinpoint, to understand how they’re addressing these multi-faceted hiring challenges. Pinpoint represents an interesting evolution in talent acquisition technology—one that prioritizes organizational flexibility over feature standardization.
Why Complex Organizations Struggle with Standard ATS Solutions
The ATS market faces a fundamental challenge: on paper, most platforms look 85% identical when organizations evaluate their options. Yet the reality of hiring varies dramatically across industries, geographies, and organizational structures.
Consider the complexity facing many mid-market organizations today. A retail chain needs seasonal hiring surges managed by store managers, while simultaneously running structured graduate recruitment programs from headquarters. Professional services firms require entirely different processes for hiring senior partners versus administrative staff. Manufacturing companies often lack dedicated recruitment teams but need to fill high-volume positions efficiently.
Traditional ATS vendors typically address this through customization—often complex, expensive, and requiring ongoing IT support. Pinpoint takes a different approach: building flexibility into the platform’s core architecture rather than treating it as an add-on.
The Current ATS Landscape
Understanding where Pinpoint fits requires examining the established players in the market:
Greenhouse focuses on structured hiring processes with comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities. The platform emphasizes data-driven recruitment decisions and offers extensive integrations with third-party tools.
iCIMS serves primarily enterprise clients with high-volume recruitment needs. The platform provides end-to-end talent acquisition capabilities and integrates with numerous HR systems and job boards.
SmartRecruiters positions itself as an AI-powered hiring platform with extensive integration capabilities. The solution targets mid-market to enterprise organizations with complex recruitment workflows.
Workday Recruiting operates as part of the broader Workday HCM suite, providing integrated talent acquisition functionality alongside payroll, benefits, and other HR functions.
Lever combines ATS functionality with candidate relationship management (CRM) capabilities, emphasizing long-term talent pipeline development and candidate engagement.
How Pinpoint Addresses Multi-Stream Recruitment Complexity
Pinpoint’s approach centers on helping organizations move flexibly along what Van Neste describes as a grid with two axes: centralized versus decentralized processes, and centralized versus localized responsibility.
Configurable Process Architecture Instead of forcing all hiring through identical workflows, Pinpoint allows organizations to create distinct recruitment processes for different roles, locations, or business units. A retail client might have store managers handling frontline recruitment with simplified mobile-friendly workflows, while corporate HR manages executive search with comprehensive interview panels and detailed evaluation criteria.
Moving Between Centralized and Decentralized Hiring Organizations can transition from centralized recruitment to pushing decisions down to local managers while maintaining oversight where needed. River Island, a UK fashion retailer with over 250 stores, moved from having all recruitment done by head office to pushing store recruitment down to store managers, with the central recruitment team checking in to ensure candidate experience and compliance standards are maintained.
Who Benefits from This Flexible Foundation
Professional Services (Law, Consulting, Accounting)
- Specific Need: Multiple hiring streams requiring different evaluation criteria and stakeholder involvement
- Pinpoint Advantage: Separate workflows for graduate intake, lateral hires, and support staff while maintaining firm-wide reporting and compliance
Retail and Hospitality Organizations
- Specific Need: High-volume, location-based hiring with varying local requirements
- Pinpoint Advantage: Store-level recruitment autonomy with centralized candidate experience and brand consistency
Global Manufacturing
- Specific Need: Different recruitment approaches across regions with varying job board ecosystems and compliance requirements
- Pinpoint Advantage: Localized processes that adapt to regional hiring practices while providing enterprise-wide visibility
Healthcare Systems
- Specific Need: Clinical roles requiring specialized credentialing alongside administrative and support positions
- Pinpoint Advantage: Role-specific workflows that accommodate regulatory requirements while streamlining standard hiring processes
Multi-Brand Organizations
- Specific Need: Distinct employer brands and hiring approaches for different business units or acquired companies
- Pinpoint Advantage: Separate recruitment identities and processes under unified data management and reporting
Strategic Market Position and Forward Outlook
Pinpoint occupies an interesting position in the ATS market. While competitors either focus on feature depth (Greenhouse’s analytics) or breadth (iCIMS’s enterprise scale), Pinpoint prioritizes organizational adaptability. This positioning becomes increasingly valuable as companies grow through acquisition, expand geographically, or diversify their workforce strategies.
Looking ahead, their white-labeling strategy could differentiate them further. Rather than building every recruitment tool internally, they’re creating an ecosystem where customers access best-in-class point solutions through a single platform and vendor relationship. This approach could prove particularly attractive to organizations seeking comprehensive capabilities without integration complexity.
The fundamental question for talent acquisition leaders becomes: does your organization’s hiring complexity require a platform built for flexibility, or can you standardize processes to fit traditional ATS architectures? For many growing companies managing diverse hiring needs, Pinpoint’s orchestration approach offers a compelling alternative to forcing organizational adaptation around software limitations.
Brandon Hall Group analysts regularly evaluate emerging HR technology solutions. This analysis is based on briefings with solution providers, market research, and customer feedback to provide strategic insights for talent acquisition leaders.
