One extra click doesn’t sound like a big deal.
Until your recruiting team does it 200 times a week.
I came across a build from a TA leader in PromptMates who was frustrated with some of the workflow gaps created by their move from SmartRecruiters to Rippling. Instead of accepting the friction or looking for another recruiting tool, they built a Chrome extension that adds a mini sidebar experience on top of Rippling.
And I think there’s a bigger lesson here.
If your recruiters struggle with…
- Finding the one piece of information they need in a candidate’s history: digging through 10+ recruiter notes, tags, emails, and activity records before a candidate call
- Moving information between systems: copying candidate details, logging emails, updating notes, or jumping between the ATS, LinkedIn, email, and other recruiting tools
- Getting the right candidate context at the right moment: like needing a candidate’s timezone, contact information, interview stage, compensation expectations, or previous feedback while scheduling or preparing for a conversation
- Doing repetitive actions that take way too many clicks: opening email, logging communication, advancing/rejecting candidates, adding notes, or navigating between candidate tabs
- Having valuable recruiting data that’s technically “in the ATS” but practically hard to use: especially when you’re trying to answer a simple question like “What does my team already know about this person?”
…this is the type of build I’d take a look at.
So…What does this build actually do?
The Chrome extension adds a collapsible sidebar to the candidate experience in Rippling.
It surfaces:
- Candidate contact information
- LinkedIn profile
- AI match score
- Time zone
- Interview stage
It also gives recruiters keyboard shortcuts to quickly pull up email history, open Outlook with the appropriate logging email already included, and move or reject candidates while reviewing them.
They’re essentially putting a small recruiting interface on top of it that makes the system work better for their actual workflow.
The technical side
The build is a Chrome extension that interacts with the Rippling recruiting interface, with integration into Outlook Web for email.
There’s also an AI component for the candidate match score.
What I particularly liked was the security iteration.
The first version rendered sensitive information into the webpage’s DOM. After feedback from Security, they rebuilt that piece using a persistent side panel to address the issue.
That’s a good reminder that building something useful is only half the job. How the information is handled matters too.
Why I think this is interesting
TA teams don’t always need another platform.
Sometimes they need a better layer on top of the platforms they already have.
If your ATS does 90% of what you need but makes the other 10% incredibly painful, that 10% might be where a small internal build makes sense.
Before buying another tool, I’d make a list of the things your recruiters complain about every single week.
“Why do I have to do this?”
“Why can’t I see that here?”
“Why am I copying this from one system to another?”
And you’ll find alot of these fixes no longer require a new platform!
Muchas gracias por la idea, Stefan!