When hiring, you must keep track of your candidates as thoroughly as possible. Failing to do so could mean that your company misses out on an incredible person who would have made an awesome employee otherwise.
No need to panic, though! To keep a cool head and ensure all of your options are well organized, these are the top ways to keep track of job candidates.
Create A Job Candidate Spreadsheet In Excel or Google Docs
If you’re going to DIY this, creating your spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets is your best option. These kinds of spreadsheets allow you to decide which information is the most important to include and which data should be overlooked.
Although this means you’ll have to enter each candidate’s information manually, that gives you a chance to read over their applications thoroughly to pick the best option.
Use Google Drive and Calendar
Google Drive is another excellent option for any company that wants to be able to organize these applications and is powerful when paired with Google Calendar for scheduling appointments.
A great part of Google Drive is once you upload a document, you can search any records within a folder on your drive. This might mean seeking out applicants who mention experience in this field or looking for those with lots of weekend availability.
Create A Table In Word or Google Docs
If you don’t want to make a spreadsheet in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, the next best thing is to create a table. Although these can’t be sorted as easily, they’re fantastic for categorizing employees and making a list of their attributes.
Again, this is a great space to start if you want to learn more about setting up spreadsheets since it initially requires some skills.
Use ATS Software
This is by far the easiest option and only requires a little learning curve. An applicant tracking software takes all of the best parts of spreadsheets and tables and combines them into a preset format that organizes your applicants for you.
A good ATS software will allow you to filter through your applicants and find the best fit for your company on all matters. Although some require you to input all of your information manually, many can take the information from popular hiring websites and directly put it into the software on its own.
Create An Alert System
This option is only for those who are already generally organized and want to take it further. To keep track of job candidates through alerts, you’ll need a few things. First of all, you’ll have to be able to download those candidates you like, and then from here, make it so that reminders will pop up to review them and whittle down the numbers throughout a couple of days to a full week.
Setting reminders to review, making yourself go over each of them multiple times can make sure that you know more about an applicant than their name by the time they’re ready for their first interview.
