Field notes
Case studies
Drawn from panel debriefs during live hiring sprints. Teams are labeled by stage and region only - no company or individual names. Every story is about what changed when screening stopped at resumes. For shorter operator notes, see insights.
Seed team (anonymized)
Three ATS switches before a seed backend hire stuck
A San Francisco seed infrastructure team burned cycles on three hiring systems before settling on Honrly for job-specific written screens.
Read the case →Pre-seed team (anonymized)
From free ATS hopping to Honrly for a founding AE
A Brooklyn pre-seed team cycled through three free or trial ATS products before settling on Honrly for comparable sales screens.
Read the case →Series A team (anonymized)
Legacy Greenhouse stayed; Honrly ran the design screen in parallel
A New York Series A product org could not fully leave Greenhouse for legacy process reasons - so they ran Honrly alongside it for job-specific design screens.
Read the case →Seed team (anonymized)
Lever, Sheets, then Honrly - the stack that ended the shortlist fight
A Bay Area seed company switched hiring systems three times in one search before settling on Honrly for comparable support screens.
Read the case →Pre-seed team (anonymized)
A founding eng search that outlasted two ATS trials
An Austin pre-seed founder abandoned two ATS trials mid-search and settled on Honrly once take-homes lived inside the candidate record.
Read the case →Series A team (anonymized)
Couldn’t leave Greenhouse - so Honrly screened PMs beside it
A Chicago Series A growth org kept Greenhouse for compliance and offers, and adopted Honrly in parallel for written PM assessments.
Read the case →Seed team (anonymized)
Hiring a first recruiter after two regretted ATS bets
A Denver seed company switched tools twice, then settled on Honrly so their first recruiter would not inherit a dual-stack mess.
Read the case →Post-seed team (anonymized)
Teamtailor to Ashby to Honrly for an outbound AE search
A Miami post-seed SaaS team switched careers stacks twice mid-year, then settled on Honrly when outbound craft had to show up in writing.
Read the case →Series A team (anonymized)
Lever stayed for HRIS; Honrly took the ML take-home lane
A Seattle Series A ML team could not leave Lever for legacy IT reasons, so they adopted Honrly in parallel for take-homes and shortlist agreement.
Read the case →Remote-first team (anonymized)
Ashby, Notion, then Honrly - settling a remote ops search
A remote-first seed company switched from Ashby to a Notion-only hiring board, then settled on Honrly when async founders needed written ops scenarios.
Read the case →