How Water for People optimized global recruitment time with Deel

Water for People is a global nonprofit bringing clean water and sanitation services to communities across 10 countries. With HR teams spread across Latin America, Africa, India, and the US, managing recruitment consistently at a global scale was far harder than it needed to be.

The organization was already using Deel for payroll, but relied on a separate ATS for hiring. Country teams outside the US had no active reason to log into the ATS between hiring cycles and routinely lost access—and regaining that access from outside the US was slow and unreliable. On top of that, the recruitment process itself was largely manual: no bulk candidate communications, no automated screening, and no centralized candidate history.

“We needed one system where all of our employees already had access—not two separate platforms, where people had to re-request login credentials every time we opened a new role.” — Ana Tovar, Global Human Resources Manager, Water for People

Water for People adopted the ATS module within Deel HR, giving every country team one place to recruit, screen, and hire—fully connected to the HRIS they were already using for payroll and employee data.

Ana Tovar, who manages recruitment for global headquarters and oversees hiring across all country programs, uses Deel end-to-end: from posting a role to moving a hired candidate directly into onboarding. Country HR teams across all 10 locations now run their full recruiting process in the same platform, and no one loses access between hiring cycles.

The day-to-day impact has been significant. Bulk candidate communication replaced manual outreach, so the team can reach any number of candidates at scale. Custom correspondence templates—built for every stage of the process, from interview invites to offer communications—mean Tovar can act quickly without starting from scratch each time. Knockout questions automatically filter high-volume applicant pools, sometimes up to 500 applications for a single role, so the team focuses only on qualified candidates.

Deel’s AI capabilities add another layer of efficiency. AI-powered candidate ranking surfaces the most qualified applicants first. Per-candidate AI insights highlight experience gaps and flag potentially inaccurate application details, giving the team a stronger signal before moving anyone forward. Interview panelists are prompted to submit structured feedback after each conversation, giving hiring managers a complete record and a clearer basis for decisions.

When an offer is accepted, one click moves the candidate from the ATS into the HRIS. Their information pre-populates the new employee profile automatically—eliminating a significant source of manual work for Tovar, who also runs onboarding.

“Deel has reduced my recruitment admin time by 30%. Being able to contact hundreds of candidates at once, use templates for every situation, and move a new hire directly into onboarding without re-entering data—once you’re familiar with all the features, the whole process is much more efficient and seamless." — Ana Tovar, Global Human Resources Manager, Water for People

Since moving to Deel, Water for People has managed 26 open roles and hired 21 people across all 10 countries on one unified platform. Tovar’s recruitment admin time has dropped by an estimated 30%, driven by automated communications, AI-assisted screening, and the reduction of manual data re-entry at every stage of the process.

Every country team now operates in the same hiring system. Access is no longer a barrier. The full candidate journey—from application to offer to onboarding—lives in one place. For a small, globally distributed HR team, that means less friction in processes and more capacity for the programs that actually matter.

With a unified foundation in place, Water for People is positioned to scale hiring quickly as the organization grows—increasing volume without adding administrative overhead.