Recruitment used to be simple:
Post a job, get a few CVs, phone the top candidates, hire someone before payday.
But then the world got noisy. Job boards exploded. Applicant volumes skyrocketed. Candidates started applying from their phones at midnight.
And recruiters? They became half-admin, half-counsellor, half-data-capturer - yes, that’s too many halves, but that’s exactly what hiring feels like today.
The real problem?
Recruitment has become a monologue.
Systems talk at candidates, candidates wait in silence, and HR teams scramble behind the scenes hoping nothing breaks.
A Conversational ATS finally flips this script - turning hiring back into a two-way dialogue powered by automation, intelligence, and real human connection.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth - most candidates never wanted to log into your career portal.
They don’t want a password.
They don’t want a long form.
They don’t want a “Thank you for your application. We’ll get back to you… maybe.”
What they actually want is clarity.
Speed.
Direction.
And communication that happens where their life happens - on mobile, and mostly, on WhatsApp.
A Conversational ATS meets that expectation head-on.
It doesn’t force candidates into your system.
It brings the system to them.
A traditional ATS collects information.
A conversational ATS creates engagement.
Instead of relying on candidates to jump through hoops, it starts the conversation instantly - guiding them through screening, scheduling, and updates through a chat interface that feels natural and familiar.
This is where txtHR shines.
It’s your recruitment front door - fully automated, always on, accessible to every South African with a phone.
And behind that front door?
Neptune, organising every response, filtering every candidate, logging every step, and keeping HR crystal clear and compliant.
It’s the difference between static software and a living, breathing recruitment system.
txtHR handles the initial conversation:
“Hi! Are you applying for the cashier role? Great. Answer these quick questions.”
No PDFs. No file uploads. Just a conversation.
txtHR captures structured data. Neptune scores it, filters it, and routes it.
HR doesn’t need to read 400 CVs to find the three qualified candidates.
No more ghosting, from either side.
Candidates get automated messages at every step, and recruiters get full visibility of conversations and status changes.
Every message, consent prompt, and outcome is logged.
Every report in Neptune is audit ready.
It’s compliance without the panic.
South Africa isn’t a laptop-first job market - it never has been.
Hiring here is uniquely:
Which means the “global ATS experience” built for desktop-heavy markets doesn’t translate.
But a WhatsApp-first, conversational, AI-driven experience?
That makes perfect sense.
txtHR speaks the language of the South African workforce.
Neptune captures, structures, and manages that data with enterprise-level hiring logic.
Together, they give HR teams speed, scale, and sanity.
Recruiters finally get to do the work that matters:
Instead of drowning in tasks that should have been automated five years ago.
A conversational ATS doesn’t replace recruiters.
It removes everything that distracts them from being great at their jobs.
Applying becomes easy.
Feedback is consistent.
The path forward is clear.
And because candidates feel respected and informed, they stay engaged — you don’t lose great talent to slow processes or silence.
A Conversational ATS delivers:
It’s not just tech for the sake of tech.
It’s business value, powered by conversation.
Hiring shouldn’t feel like submitting a tax return.
It should feel like a human conversation - supported by intelligent software that understands the realities of South African recruitment.
Neptune & txtHR do exactly that.
They bring speed, automation, and humanity together in one seamless ecosystem.
The future of recruitment isn’t more forms, more clicks, or more systems.
It’s fewer hoops, fewer barriers, and better conversations.
The future is a dialogue, and it starts on WhatsApp.