[Spotlight] Interview with Julien Chevalier & Florian Miñana, founder & independent HR consultant at Orhatek

1. Julien, you founded Orhatek in 2022 with a strong conviction: turning digital tools into levers of HR performance. Four years on, have companies really changed their relationship with HR tools, or are we still at the stage of convincing them?

Julien Chevalier: In 2026, companies have clearly changed their view of their HR tools.

We are no longer only dealing with operational tools, but with true strategic levers, which have a direct impact on recruitment performance, the employer brand and internal organization.

Most HR departments are now aware that their tools condition their ability to recruit, integrate and retain talent. In tight markets, not being well equipped quickly becomes a handicap.

On the other hand, even though the awareness is there, the need for support has never been stronger! The HR-solutions market has become enormously denser: there are now more than 150 ATS, not to mention onboarding, assessment and multi-posting tools, or the various solutions based on AI and productivity gains.

In this context, the challenge is no longer to convince companies to invest, but to make the right choices! Our role at Orhatek is precisely to help companies structure their HR digital strategy, which has become a major challenge for the company's longevity as well as its attractiveness.

2. The HR-solutions ecosystem is dense: ATS, job boards, multi-posters, onboarding tools, assessment platforms… How do you find your way to advise your clients? And how do you avoid falling into the "tool for the tool's sake" trap?

Julien Chevalier: It is precisely because the ecosystem has become very dense that the audit phase is essential in our engagements.

We rarely start from a tool need. We start from a problem: recruitment difficulties, lack of visibility into applications, processes that are too long, poor candidate experience, lack of steering, etc.

The audit allows us to analyze existing practices, internal organization, recruitment volumes, business constraints and the company's objectives. It is this analysis that makes it possible to lay down a true HR digital strategy. It is only from this strategy that we will identify the relevant solutions.

At Orhatek, we have a very results-oriented approach: the tool for the tool's sake makes no sense. Each selected solution must meet a precise need and bring a measurable gain, whether in efficiency, recruitment quality or candidate experience. Our goal: guarantee a real return on investment for our clients.

Beyond deploying the tools, our challenge is also to better structure and exploit the HR data they produce. Well used, this data becomes a true performance lever for the company: it makes it possible to steer recruitment more finely, anticipate skills needs and inform strategic decisions in the medium and long term.

3. Florian, you are an expert in client relations and operational performance via HR tools. Concretely, how does an Orhatek engagement work? What differentiates your approach from a simple online comparison?

Florian Miñana: An online comparison is a very good starting point to understand the market, and we are convinced of this since in 2025 we published the first comparison of the main ATS in France!

But it remains a standardized tool, which cannot take into account all the complexity of an organization nor all the subtleties of the market's solutions…

At Orhatek, our added value rests on two things: knowledge of the HR field and knowledge of HR digital tools.

And in HR Tech, developments are fast: new features, acquisitions, repositionings… A comparison can become obsolete in a few months, whereas as HR-tools experts, we ensure continuous monitoring of all the market's solutions.

The real difference plays out from the very start of the engagement, with this in-depth audit phase mentioned by Julien.

Each organization has its specifics: recruitment volumes, profile types, team structuring, tool maturity, business challenges… There is therefore no "universal good solution", only solutions suited to a given context.

Our role is not limited to presenting tools. We position ourselves as an intermediary between HR needs and technological solutions.

Concretely, we help our clients clarify their objectives, select the most suitable solution, steer the deployment project and ensure consistency between the different tools used. As a strategic partner, we often become the single point of contact on HR-tech topics, to make HR professionals' daily lives easier.

4. Onboarding is often the poor relation of digital HR investments: people think about recruiting, less about integrating. Why is it a critical challenge, and which tools really make the difference?

Florian Miñana: It's true that onboarding is still too often underestimated, even though it is a key step in the candidate-employee journey!

A lot of energy is invested in recruiting, but if integration is not successful, the risk of departure in the first few months remains high… Onboarding and even pre-onboarding are therefore direct levers of retention, engagement and performance.

Good onboarding makes it possible to create connection from the moment of the job offer, to transmit the company culture, to structure the taking up of the post and to secure skill development.

On the tools side, we see very relevant solutions emerging like Wobee, Heyteam or Workelo, which make it possible to digitalize and structure these journeys.

These digital tools bring real value: they make it possible, for example, to prepare the employee's arrival in advance, to centralize documents, to organize integration journeys, to plan training, or to track the key stages of the probation period.

We also see more and more companies connecting their ATS, their HRIS and their onboarding tool to smooth the entire journey, from candidate to employee.

These are often less visible investments than recruitment, but their impact on retention and the employee experience is very strong! At Orhatek, we really believe in it.

5. In your view, what will be the major challenges of HR digitalization in 2026-2027? Will AI really transform HR tools, or is it still a lot of promises?

Julien Chevalier: In our view, the major challenges of the coming years will revolve around three main axes:

First, the simplification of usage.

Today, HR teams as well as employees face a proliferation of tools. The challenge will be to make these solutions simpler, more intuitive and better integrated into daily life.

Next, data.

Companies collect an enormous amount of information, but still struggle to exploit it effectively. The challenge will be to make this data more accessible, more readable, and above all more useful for steering HR decisions. Because well-structured HR data does not only serve the HR function: it also makes it possible to align human decisions with the company's operational and financial challenges, and therefore to improve its overall performance.

Finally, we observe a real shift in logic: we are gradually moving from a stack of tools to a global steering approach, more coherent and more strategic.

Florian Miñana: And will AI transform HR tools?

I would say that the reality is nuanced. There are indeed many promises… but also already many concrete uses.

Today, AI is already used on topics such as CV screening, matching, application scoring, task automation or sourcing assistance.

The limits are not so much technological as operational: they mainly concern the quality of the available data, as well as the need for human supervision.

In my view, AI will not replace recruiters, but it will clearly transform the way they work! It makes it possible to save time on certain tasks, in order to refocus on what really makes the difference: the human relationship and decision-making.

For the years to come, we believe that the companies that will best leverage HR digital will be those that have a global vision: fewer isolated tools, more strategy, more data, and solid support to make the right choices.

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