Start a Recruitment Agency
Companion to "The lean stack" and "A real week."
One spreadsheet, two tabs (print one of each per week if you work on paper). A row per person and per company: stage, last contact, next action, notes. Every candidate note, follow-up date, and client promise lives in the tracker the same day. The in-between states are what software misses: interested, resume promised but not sent, waiting on the hiring manager's feedback.
| Company / contact | Niche | Role(s) | Stage (list / contacted / replied / call held / agreement signed / submissions / interviews / offer / placed / dead) | Last contact | Next action + date | Fee terms agreed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Current role (useful-context line) | Source | Stage (sourced / screened / submitted / interviewing / offer / placed / fallback / counteraccepted) | Last contact | Next action + date | Comp (current / expectation / floor) | Motivators in their words | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Load guardrails: a solo recruiter carries three to five active searches when the roles differ, up to fifteen or more when they are multiples of the same role at the same client. A sixth search at five means something else is about to get dropped silently.
Friday is the appointment that makes the rest matter. Below-benchmark numbers get a written cause and a change for next week: new template, new angle, new list. Recruiters who skip Friday repeat week one for a quarter. Feelings are bad data on week quality; numbers are not.
| Week of | Candidate outreach sent | Candidate response rate | Client outreach sent | Client reply rate | Screens held | Submissions out | Processes moved (stage changes) | Cause + change if below benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday: review both trackers end to end, build the outreach batch, write the week's targets | ☐ |
| Tuesday to Thursday: production days; source in bursts of 30 to 45 minutes; screens, follow-ups, debriefs; notes into the tracker immediately after each call; inbox cleaned twice a day at set times | ☐ |
| Interrupts outrank blocks: offer calls, candidate wobbles, comp conversations jump the queue | ☐ |
| Friday: the audit; tracker cleaned, names recycled or rested, Monday's list drafted | ☐ |