AI-Powered Recruitment Admin Automation

Project Overview

A two-person UK executive recruitment consultancy was running every vacancy cycle by hand — rewriting notes into advert drafts, manually stripping contact details from CVs before branding them, editing terms templates client by client, and tracking follow-ups from memory. With no orchestration between any of these steps, the Founder was the bottleneck for every document that went out the door. SIDIS built a minimal, n8n-centred pilot that covers the entire admin cycle, from raw notes to ready-to-send output, while leaving every approval with the recruiter.

Solutions

Workflow Automation, AI Implementation

Departments

Recruitment

Industrys

HR & Recruiting

Location

United Kingdom

Cooperation period

5 days

Services used

AI Workflow Automation

Recruitment Admin Automation

Document Automation

n8n Workflow Design

Challenges to Resolve

Job Adverts Rebuilt From Scratch Every Time

Notes were manually rewritten and reprompted for every vacancy, costing hours of recruiter time per role with no template carrying over from one cycle to the next.

CV Formatting Was a Manual, Risky Step

Contact details and branding were handled by hand before every CV went to a client, which meant inconsistent quality and a real risk of candidate data leaking into a client-facing document.

Repetitive Contract Admin

Terms and conditions templates were edited by hand for each client — name, date, nothing that needed a person's judgement — which still slowed down contract flow every time.

Follow-Ups Relied on Memory

Check-ins were tracked ad hoc rather than on a system, and missed follow-ups occasionally cost the team a placement.

Tech Stack Used

A minimal, n8n-centred stack handles the full vacancy admin cycle without adding engineering overhead.

Workflow Engine

n8n runs as the single orchestration layer behind every module, from intake form to final output.

AI Layer

OpenAI GPT-4.1 and 4o handle controlled text generation through strict, deterministic prompt templates.

Integrations

Microsoft Outlook/365 via Graph API, SharePoint, and an optional Google Sheets layer plug straight into the recruiter's existing tools.

Storage & Audit

Run logs land in SharePoint with an optional PostgreSQL audit trail, giving a full record of every automation run.

The Solution

From raw notes to ready-to-send documents, in one pass

SIDIS designed and built a minimal, n8n-centred automation pilot covering the full vacancy admin cycle, while every approval decision still sits with the recruiter.

Vacancy notes to draft pack — raw notes or transcript text go in, and a strict prompt template turns them into a structured vacancy brief and a first-draft job advert. The system checks that role, location and must-have skills are present before producing the draft, so the recruiter never gets a half-finished document.
CV sanitisation & branding — contact details are detected and redacted automatically, the company header and logo are applied, and a redaction report is generated for every CV. Final export is blocked until the clean check passes.

Terms & conditions autofill — client name and date populate automatically at the point of trigger, with the output written back to a client-specific SharePoint folder.
Follow-up reminder automation — the recruiter sets the check-in type and timing once, and dated reminder tasks land in Outlook via the Graph API the moment the vacancy package is processed.
Action log & audit trail — every run is logged with an ID, timestamp, user and output status, with duplicate CV submissions caught via hash check before they're processed.

AI is scoped narrowly to the steps where turning unstructured notes into structured documents adds real value — every output still goes through human review before it reaches a client.

Why It Matters

Five working days after scoping, a two-person team had an admin layer that ran itself, without adding a single engineering dependency to their week.

Vacancy Prep Down to One Submission

What used to take 30 to 45 minutes of manual drafting now starts with a single structured input.

Every CV Leaves Branded and Clean

Contact redaction and branding apply automatically on every submission, with export blocked until the check passes.

No More Chasing Dates by Memory

Follow-up reminders are created the moment a vacancy package is processed, not whenever someone remembers to set one.

Built to Run Without Engineering Support

The two-person team operates the whole system day to day, with every n8n workflow and prompt fully exported and owned by them.

"It's just the two of us, so every hour we used to spend reformatting notes or chasing follow-up dates was an hour we weren't recruiting. Now that admin happens by itself and we actually trust it."