You’ve probably outgrown your childhood fears of vampires, witches, and other ghoulish figures, but there’s a new monster lurking in the corner that you haven’t met. Beware the Frankenstack!
The Frankenstack is a recruiter’s worst nightmare: a disparate mish-mash of technologies & systems deliberately bolted together - but which aren’t fully integrated in terms of functionality and intelligence. The result? Just as the original Frankenstein reigned in terror, a ‘Frankenstack’ wreaks havoc on your recruitment business operations and derails your path to revenue and growth.
Recruiters call this a 'tech stack'. At best, it's a 'debt-stack'. In reality, you've built a 'Frankenstack'.
So what is a RecTech ‘Frankenstack’?
A Frankenstack is a collection of disparate software tools mish-mashed together. Different tech vendors to deal with. Multiple invoices at the end of each month. Integration failure points and, crucially, nothing working in two-way sync.The recruitment Frankenstack exists in many forms, here are 3 of the most common:
1. The ‘Marketplace’ Frankenstack
This is the CRM vendor that outsources key features to the third parties in their marketplace. Elements that are essential to growing your business - think online timesheets, Candidate/Client portals, TV dashboards, decent analytics - are provided by ‘partners’ instead of the CRM vendor.
These guys work on the theory that, once you are using a few of the third party apps in their marketplace you’ll be trapped into staying with them. More vendors equals more problems. Misaligned contract end-dates and the classic ‘vendor blame game’ as soon as there’s an issue with integrations.
2. The ‘Platform-Play’ Frankenstack
Typical examples are applications like Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics. They rely heavily on partners to deliver services and the platform itself. This Frankenstack requires you to spend big on ‘integration’ and ‘customisation’. A lot of ‘yes’ in the sales process, followed up by a lot of teeth-sucking once you sign up.
3. The ‘Build-your-Own’ Frankenstack
A custom-built mess of hardware and software. Typically stitched together over years by a small team of developers to support changing business needs. You own all the problems. A nightmare to move away from, this Frankenstack inhibits growth.
A ‘Frankenstack’ is a ‘Frankenstack’. The bolts don’t go away.
Over the past decade, the rush to the Cloud combined with a proliferation of rec-tech apps have contributed significantly to the rise of the Frankenstack. Anyone with a credit card can add new tools to their ‘tech stack’ within seconds, without thinking hard about the implications for the recruitment business.
But they have glossed over one crucial thing: all the heavy lifting required to truly make things work together. The type of deep integration that allows your systems to speak to each other. Properly. Are your tools fully connected in a two-way sync? Or are your teams still bogged down by admin?
That era of stacking point solutions is starting to give way to something else: recruitment platforms built to do it all natively, rather than stitching together an ecosystem of partners. The question isn't "which new tool do I add" anymore, it's "why am I still doing this with five vendors instead of one."
Here are 5 tell-tale signs you have a RecTech ‘Frankenstack’:
1. You have 5 or more different tools / tech vendors.
Take an honest look at your ‘Tech Stack’. Make a list of the systems that you’re using across your business.
Chances are, you deal with different vendors; one for your website, one for your ATS/CRM, one for timesheets, one for internal messaging and another for reporting & analytics... all of these are things a single platform like Access Vincere Evo already handles natively, which is worth keeping in mind as you count up your own list.
2. Your tools don’t talk to each other.
Does your recruitment data flow from one system to another, in a seamless two-way sync? Think about your candidate, recruiter and client touchpoints. From candidate applications on your website or via job boards, through to your recruitment database, to managing interviews, compliance & verification checks, sending out offer letters through to billing and invoicing. Are all these interactions silo-ed in separate systems? Or is your ‘integration’ in reality little more than a 1-way data-push?
Crucially, when it comes to recruitment analytics and reporting - is this process complex, time-consuming and manual?
3. Have you spent $$$ on ‘integration’ & ‘customisation’?
The devil is in the design. You're babysitting a bunch of systems that require you to spend big on 'integration' and 'customisation'....we get it. It’s easy to be sold the ‘dream’ of having a core recruitment CRM/ATS with access to a big marketplace of 3rd party apps and vendors. But know this- despite your best efforts, these ‘integrations’ are often very shallow and, despite your best efforts, are doomed to never quite work seamlessly.
You could be using workarounds, throwing cash at custom work and multiple add-ons from your vendor’s marketplace. You’re cobbling together disparate systems - fingers crossed - hoping it all works.
4. How much are you spending on your ‘tech stack’?
Ask yourself this: how many invoices do you get periodically, from the various platforms you’re using? How much do each of them cost? Any zombie user licenses i.e. those that you’re paying for just to keep the tool running? Do you know their contract start and end dates? What about all the indirect costs that go to ‘integration’, ‘customisation’ and running proof of concepts?
If you’re not tracking exactly how much $ you’re investing in your various systems, how can you accurately measure their ROI?
Put your numbers to the test with our ROI calculator. Uncover how much money and time your tech is really saving you.
5. You’re afraid of your back office team (and pander to their needs)
Your finance manager walks out the door today, how would you cope? Are you using any back-office software? Does it fully integrate with your ‘tech stack’?
Or, perhaps the real question is: do you know how your back office software and processes work?
If most of your middle office processes are manual, and the only documentation that exists lives in the heads of your back office team, you’ll naturally be worried if they leave. By automating and streamlining your recruitment back-office, you take back control over this vital part of your business.
Think you've got a Frankenstack? Fret not, your scary story can have a happy ending.
We're entering a new era of recruitment tech: platforms, not patchworks. Access Vincere Evo was built for exactly this shift: one system covering front, middle, and back-office operations, with every module pre-integrated from day one. No duct tape, no vendor blame game, no zombie licenses. Just one platform that works together, because it was built together.
It's time to focus on scaling your business, not managing a Frankenstack.
