A recruiting tracker from a spreadsheet

One vague sentence became a Candidates table, a drag-and-drop hiring board, a searchable list & a written record of what Chip assumed, after exactly one question.

Use case

The request

Can you help me keep track of job applicants? Right now it's a spreadsheet and things fall through.

What Chip asked

Chip checked the workspace first and found nothing about hiring, so this was a new build. It asked one question, the one whose answer decides the stage dropdown, the board columns & the default view:

Chip: What stages does someone move through, from application to hired?

Answer: Applied, phone screen, interview, offer, then hired or rejected.

Chip's question card: what it found in the workspace, then one question with three options — Figure: the one question Chip asked

Everything else Chip decided itself:

One row is one application. Someone who applies twice appears twice, which keeps each application's stage history intact.
Entry by hand. The ask was to track, and nothing suggested an import.
The board is the main screen. "Things fall through" is a stage-visibility problem.

Chip then wrote the plan down before building: the problem, what success looks like & what it would leave out.

Chip's plan headed Before I build this: changes, triggers, impact & scope, with a button to create the tracker — Figure: the plan Chip wrote before building

What got built

A Recruiting Tracker space in the main navigation, holding:

A Candidates table. One row per application: name, email, role, stage, date applied, source & notes. Stage is a dropdown of the stages you named, which is what makes the board possible.
A Hiring Pipeline board. One column per stage. Cards show name, role & date applied; drag one to the next column to move an application on.
An All Candidates list. Name, role, stage as a badge, date applied & source, newest first, with search and filters. Email & notes live in the row detail.
Documents that explain it. The intent, an overview & why one row is one application.

Chip checked the board before handing it over.

How it runs now. Add an applicant, see exactly where every application sits & drag it forward as it moves. Nothing falls through, and the spreadsheet is retired.

Try it

Paste this into Build, with your own stages:

Paste into Build

Can you help me keep track of job applicants? Right now it's a spreadsheet and things fall through. Our stages are applied, phone screen, interview, offer, then hired or rejected.

Leave the stages out and Chip will ask for them.