How Trigon Gruppe turned hiring chaos into a structured pipeline with their first ATS

Trigon Gruppe is a Berlin-based real estate company that manages and lets over 6,000 residential and commercial properties across Germany, everything from apartment buildings to commercial units. With a portfolio that large, hiring never stops: the company recruits continuously for roles ranging from facility staff and gardeners to property managers and commercial specialists. But with a three-person HR team and no applicant tracking system, candidate data was getting lost across Indeed, email, and scattered inboxes. Eight months after adopting Join as their first ATS, the team had 101 live and completed job postings, full visibility into every application, and more hires than before Join, all without formal onboarding or IT complexity.

The Challenge: Fragmented, manual, and leaking data

When Cengizhan Akan joined Trigon Gruppe’s HR team, the company’s recruiting setup was exactly what you would expect from an organisation that had never used an ATS: fragmented, manual, and leaking data. Trigon manages thousands of properties across Germany and hires continuously — facility staff, gardeners, property managers, commercial professionals — but the tools behind that hiring had not kept pace with the portfolio.

Candidate data scattered across channels with no single source of truth. Applications arrived through Indeed, through email, through various other portals. Nothing fed into one system. “We had no visibility into where candidates were coming from, or where the data ended up,” Cengizhan said. Information slipped between the cracks, and the team had no reliable way to trace a candidate’s origin or status.

Lost applications and poor organisation making the team less effective. Without a central pipeline, candidate details disappeared. Follow-ups fell through. The three-person HR team spent time searching for information instead of evaluating it. “It was a bit of chaos,” Cengizhan said. “We couldn’t track the state of applications and that made it harder to make good hiring decisions.”

Low application volume limiting hiring options. With no structured way to post on multiple job boards simultaneously and with limited reach, the team received fewer applications per role than they needed. Hiring took longer because the pool was smaller, and the pressure to fill roles across both blue-collar and white-collar positions never eased.

A paper-heavy environment where complex tools simply wouldn’t survive. Trigon operates with many paper-based workflows, and this is a reality for a large number of mid-size property companies. Colleagues without strong digital backgrounds needed to use the system too. Any ATS that required deep technical setup, weeks of training, or tight IT approvals would have been abandoned before it delivered results. Cengizhan knew this going in: simplicity wasn’t a preference, it was a requirement.

“It had all the functionalities we’d benefit from, was easy to understand, available in German, and not too complex or IT-heavy. That’s why I chose Join.”

The Solution: A tool that worked the moment he opened it

Cengizhan knew from previous recruiting experience that an ATS could fix the core problems. He researched several platforms independently, shortlisted two, and ran a free trial over several weeks with a couple of test positions.

Join won on three concrete criteria: it was available in German, it was simple enough that no formal onboarding would be needed, and it didn’t require any IT involvement to get started. “I tried it, understood it, and it just made sense,” Cengizhan said. After presenting Join to his manager and a demo call with the Join team, executive approval came through without resistance.

Every application in one pipeline instead of scattered inboxes

Before Join, tracking a candidate meant checking Indeed, scanning emails, and hoping nothing had slipped through. Now, every application, regardless of source, lands in the job’s pipeline. The team sees every candidate’s status at a glance. Cengizhan manages up to 15 live roles simultaneously, and even his less digitally-experienced colleagues can navigate the system to add notes, contact candidates, and adjust listings.

More applications through reliable multiposting

Trigon’s biggest volume problem was reach. Posting to Indeed alone wasn’t enough. With multiposting, each job automatically gets distributed to integrated job boards, including Indeed, Germany’s Federal Employment Agency (Arbeitsagentur), and Stepstone. As a result, they received significantly more applications per position than before, across both facility-level and management roles. “We definitely get far more quality applications now than we did before,” Cengizhan said. “And we’ve made more hires since we’ve had Join.”

Easy self-onboarding with no training sessions

Cengizhan did not need an onboarding session. “There was nothing to onboard into. I just started using it,” he said. His team was immediately able to create and publish jobs, communicate with candidates by email directly from Join, and keep track of everyone who applied with candidate profiles.

For a company with paper-heavy workflows and limited internal digitisation, this matters enormously. Join didn’t demand that Trigon change how they worked overnight; it delivered value within the existing environment while leaving room to grow into more features as the team’s digital confidence builds.

Screening questions filtering out mismatches early

For a team hiring across a wide range of profiles, from facility staff to qualified property managers, not every application is relevant. Screening questions let Cengizhan filter for essentials like language skills and location upfront. Unsuitable candidates are flagged before the team invests time reviewing them.

“Before Join, our recruiting setup was a catastrophe. We had no idea where candidates were coming from, and no way to keep track of them.”

The Results: A structured, always-on hiring operation

Eight months after adopting Join as their first ATS, Trigon Gruppe’s three-person HR team runs all recruiting through a single system, and the difference from before is immediate and measurable.

A structured, always-on hiring operation built from scratch. In eight months, the team went from ad-hoc Indeed postings to a consistent recruiting operation, running up to 15 live roles at any given time, across roles from janitorial staff to commercial specialists. Job creation takes minutes: copy a previous listing, adjust the details, publish. The growing library of past listings serves as a ready-made template bank for future hires.

Complete visibility: every candidate, every source, all in one place. Every application, regardless of whether it came through Indeed, Stepstone, or another channel, now lands in specific job pipelines. The team reviews, communicates with candidates, and tracks progress in one system. No more lost data or wondering which job portal someone applied through.

More hires than before, across blue-collar and white-collar roles. With broader reach through multiposting and full visibility into the pipeline, the team fills roles faster and more consistently than before Join. The improvement spans the full range of positions, from facility and maintenance roles to property management and commercial hires.

Beyond the metrics, Join changed how the team collaborates on hiring. Both Cengizhan and his colleagues work in the system daily, keeping candidate records up to date and coordinating with hiring managers through a shared pipeline rather than email chains.

Looking ahead, Cengizhan is actively exploring Join’s full feature set as Trigon’s internal digitisation grows. Candidate rating systems like scorecards and assessments, and AI-assisted job description optimisation are on his radar. As Trigon continues to grow, Join is positioned to grow with it.

Trigon Gruppe proves that you don’t need a large HR department or a high-tech environment to run structured, effective hiring. You need a tool that works the moment you open it.