How we use Jira, Confluence & JSM to manage international hiring

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Hi everyone! As a growing international team, at Seibert, we use Atlassian tools throughout the entire hiring process. I wanted to share the main ways that we use Jira, Confluence, and JSM for HR, and I'm curious to learn if anyone here has an additional use case that we can try out!

Business Forecast: Data-Driven Workforce Planning 

Business forecasting is vital in aligning workforce planning with organizational goals by anticipating headcount requirements, timelines, and cost estimations. With the help of Confluence and Jira, our HR team streamlines this process and ensures accuracy in their forecasting efforts.

Confluence provides a centralized platform for documenting business growth projections, team expansion plans, and budget allocations. HR maintains hiring roadmaps there, while collaborating with stakeholders to ensure all forecast aspects align with broader business objectives. Meanwhile, Jira transforms forecasts into actionable tasks or epics, enabling our HR team to track the progress of workforce planning initiatives, such as expanding teams or opening new positions. In summary, we:

• Use Confluence to document and share key plans, such as headcount goals and budget allocations.
• Create Jira tasks linked to specific goals, like planned hires or team scaling initiatives.
• Integrate Jira and Confluence to maintain real-time connections between forecasts and task execution, promoting alignment.

Open Positions: Finding Business Needs 

Hiring the right people at the right time is critical to our success. We pride ourselves on having a quick and seamless hiring/interviewing process for both the applicant and our internal teams. Confluence and Jira provide HR with an overview of the recruitment workflows while ensuring alignment with business forecasts. Moreover, they can track progress across all open positions. All in all, we:

• Use Confluence to centralize role descriptions and recruitment strategies, keeping everyone aligned.
• Discuss hiring at a strategic level, including approvals, alignment with forecasts, and tracking progress across all open positions.
• Generate reports in Jira to track metrics like time-to-hire and candidate conversion rates, enabling data-driven optimizations.

This structured approach reduces delays, increases transparency, and empowers our HR team to fill positions quickly while recruiting a high standard of job candidates.

Structured Application Management 

While HR teams can use Jira to create an issue for each job applicant in the recruitment process, HR teams can also use Jira Service Management (JSM) for Human Resources (HRSM) for more practical and effective application management. 

Using JSM, our HR team at Seibert sets up an HR portal where applicants, recruiters, and employees can submit inquiries or applications. HR teams can track individual candidates’ progress through structured workflows (For example, resume screening -> interview scheduling -> offering.). When an application is transitioned to a new status, for example, "Interviewing", the appropriate team members automatically get notified via email and tagged on the ticket. This helps keep everyone on the same page.

HR recruitment workflow use-case, source: Atlassian

We recommend that Jira and Confluence be used to tackle when and why hiring needs from a business-level perspective. While JSM be used to focus on how and when to progress candidates through the recruitment process  (i.e. Structured Application Management). Together, these tools cover the multifaceted aspects of the HR recruitment management process. 

Onboarding and Off-boarding

First impressions always matter. HR teams are responsible for onboarding and ensuring the smooth integration of new hires. The other end of the spectrum is also true. HR teams are also responsible for off-boarding. In both cases, HR teams can use JSM during these processes to ensure smooth transitions. 

In the case of onboarding, we've created an employee portal for onboarding requests (e.g. submitting documentation or equipment preferences). Also, IT and admin requests can be automated to gain access to software or hardware tools, seat allocation in the office, etc. Likewise, for off-boarding, HR teams can ensure exit checklists are consolidated, from deactivating accounts to securely retrieving assets (laptops, keys, etc.).  

HR Management  

The cornerstone of HR management is ensuring that the needs and satisfaction of employees are taken care of, plus ensuring policy updates and compliance tracking. 

JSM provides us a platform for centralized support. First and foremost, such a portal can reduce sheer ticket volume by giving employees access to answers for common inquiries about policies, leave balances, and more. Moreover, HR team members can maintain transparency by linking service desk queries to relevant documentation.

Example of a Service Center platform – Source: Atlassian

Does your team already use Jira, Confluence, and JSM for HR? What do you like about it? Do you find there are any limitations? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[Patricia Modispacher _appanvil_]

Dear @Katie Lai , this is such a great breakdown of how Seibert uses Jira, Confluence, and JSM for HR!

Love how everything from hiring forecasts to onboarding is streamlined—it’s super smart how you’re connecting business needs with HR processes. 

Thanks for sharing! Definitely inspiring to see Atlassian tools used this way. 

[Rishabh Jhawar]

This is very insightful, @Katie Lai . Thanks for wiring in all details.