We at Crowdstaffing know that recruiting is not an easy task, which is why we try to make it as easy for you as possible. We talk a lot about  what to do to become a great independent recruiter. It’s kind of our thing. But as many of you know by now, the road to recruiter success is riddled with potholes. Staying organized is one of the best ways to avoid the common problems that can easily derail your career.

Applicant Tracking Software = Everything in One Place

Listening to other independent recruiters out there, you know that they usually all run into the same problems eventually. You lose clients, you forget scheduled interviews, you have trouble identifying which stage a candidate is at for a client. Managing all of this information can be rather daunting. It’s actually easier on yourself, your candidates, and your clients if you use an ATS, whether that is the Crowdstaffing platform or another.

If you use an ATS, you don’t need to keep multiple spreadsheets, or agendas, or anything else digital or manual that you might have been using before. There are no hidden details since you can access everything with a few simple clicks of the mouse, from candidate contact information to salaries and benefits being offered by your client. With this much information at your fingertips, the chances of a candidate slipping through the cracks are slim to none.

Creating an Organizational Framework

Whether or not you decide to use an ATS, you’ll need to be very diligent in keeping candidate and client details organized. You also need to write everything -- and we mean everything -- down. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll remember all of the details of that phone call when you have five more calls to get through - you know you won’t. You need to create a system for both online and offline information. Here are a few tips:

Use Spreadsheets to Keep Supplemental Details Organized

Spreadsheets are a godsend if you use them correctly. They’re great for tracking information that falls outside of your ATS (ahem, like the details of that phone call). There are multiple options available, such as Google Sheets and Excel, but it’s up to you to find the best one and customize it to fit your needs. Having a personalized solution is a surefire way to keep using it.

Create a Contact Timeline for Candidates

Staying organized, whether through your own efforts or with an ATS, means that you can keep track of everything happening to a candidate, especially their progress in the hiring pipeline. You should create a standardized timeline for touching base with your candidates. After all, tracking talent is your main purpose. Don’t ever leave a candidate hanging or thinking they’ve been forgotten! Keep them updated even if it's just with a quick email using one of our templates. No candidate will refuse to work with you from over contacting them, but the opposite is very likely to happen.

Keep Details On-Hand for Interviews

It can be easy to lose track of the details of an interview when you have a ton of them scheduled. Unfortunately, this is not just a minor inconvenience. Scrambling around during the interview or sounding flustered while trying to find the correct information will put you on the fast track to losing a candidate. The more information you have on hand, the better you’ll be able to tailor your questions to your candidate, which means you’ll be able to get a feel for how the candidate matches with the position and company culture. You might want to consider grouping candidates with their positions. Keep duplicate information so that you can parse out the details into candidate folders, interview folders, position folders, and so on.

Independent recruiters can be easily overwhelmed by all of their daily tasks, leading to a whole host of problems. Creating an organizational framework, whether through an ATS or through your own efforts, can mean the difference between keeping and losing candidates and clients - the lifeblood of your job. So be diligent and systematic, and you should be able to avoid all of those pesky hazards of the recruiting world.