Running a recruitment agency can be like the Wild West…
You’re juggling candidates who’ve gone AWOL, chasing clients who won’t return your calls, and trying to keep track of where everything is in your pipeline.
And that’s just on a good day.
Here’s the thing though…
Most small agencies are trying to manage all of this chaos with a combination of spreadsheets, sticky notes, and sheer bloody-minded determination.
Which is fine if you enjoy making your life unnecessarily difficult.
But there’s a better way.
Today I want to talk about the 3 core funnels every recruiter needs to stay on top of, and why we’ve built pipeline views for all of them into our free platform.
Yes, completely free.
No trial periods, no “freemium” nonsense where all the good stuff costs extra, and definitely no credit card required just to have a look around.
After years of recruiting and now building software for recruiters, I’ve realised that everything boils down to three core areas:
1. Jobs Pipeline — Where are your open roles and what’s the potential revenue?
2. Candidates Pipeline — Where are your people in the interview process?
3. Business Development Pipeline — Which companies are you targeting and where are they in your sales process?
Get these three things organised, and suddenly you’re running a proper business instead of just hoping things work out.
Let me break down why each one matters and how they work together.
This is where most agencies start, and honestly, it’s probably the most important, as we all know with no jobs, there’s no chance of you making any revenue.
What it shows you:
Why it matters: You can actually see what you’re working towards. Instead of just hoping you’ll hit your targets, you can look at your jobs pipeline and think “Right, if I fill these three roles this month, that’s £15k in fees.”
The game-changer bit: Our jobs pipeline automatically calculates your total potential revenue. So you can see at a glance that you’ve got £43,900 worth of opportunities in your pipeline.
That number either makes you feel confident about the month ahead, or it makes you realise you need to get on the phone and generate more opportunities.
Either way, you know where you stand.
This is where you keep track of the people in process
What it shows you:
Why most agencies struggle with this: Because they’re trying to track dozens of candidates across multiple jobs using spreadsheets or (even worse) just trying to remember everything.
The reality check: When you’re managing 20+ active candidates, there’s no way you’re remembering who needs a call back on Thursday, who’s waiting for interview feedback, and who you promised to check in with next week.
How our pipeline fixes this: Every candidate gets a card that moves through your process. Shortlisted → Phone Screen → Client Interview → Offer → Hired.
You can see the whole picture at once, and you’ll never again have that sinking feeling of realising you forgot to call someone back.
This is the pipeline most recruiters completely ignore, which is mental when you think about it.
What it shows you:
Why agencies ignore this: Because BD is scary and most recruiters would rather stick needles in their eyes than pick up the phone to someone who doesn’t know they exist.
The uncomfortable truth: If you’re not consistently working on business development, you’re basically hoping your existing clients will keep giving you jobs forever.
Spoiler alert: they won’t.
I feel victim to that thought process in the past!
How the BD pipeline changes everything: Instead of randomly calling people when you remember to, you’ve got a proper system. You can see that Company A needs a follow-up call, Company B is ready for a proposal, and Company C has gone quiet and needs a nudge.
Suddenly BD becomes manageable instead of terrifying.
It’s nice to have everything in one place right!
These three pipelines don’t exist in isolation. They’re all connected.
For example:
That’s how you build a proper recruitment business instead of just filling random jobs when they come up.
Look, I’m not going to pretend we’re doing this solely out of the goodness of our hearts…
I mean, a lot of it is out of the goodness of our heart.. but we’ve got paid plans too, and if you want advanced features like custom pipelines, automation, and bulk email outreach, you can upgrade.
But here’s the thing:
I remember what it was like trying to start a recruitment business without any money.
Having to choose between paying for software or paying the rent isn’t a choice anyone should have to make.
We believe that:
The numbers don’t lie: We’ve now got over 800 recruiters globally using our free forever platform. That’s 800 people who are running their recruitment businesses without paying us a penny.
And honestly? That makes me pretty proud.
Some of them will upgrade eventually when their businesses grow. Some will stay on the free plan forever. Both are absolutely fine with us.
If you’re running a small recruitment agency and you’re currently tracking everything in spreadsheets…
Stop it.
You can have all three pipelines set up and running in about 10 minutes:
No credit card required, no trial period that runs out, no restriction on the amount of data you can store on it!
Just proper recruitment software that helps you run your business properly.
Running a recruitment agency is hard enough without trying to manage everything in your head or across seventeen different spreadsheets.
You need to know:
These aren’t nice-to-haves.
They’re the basics of running a professional recruitment business.
And you shouldn’t have to choose between having professional tools and paying your bills.
That’s why we built these three pipelines into our free platform, and that’s why over 800 recruiters around the world are using them to build their businesses without breaking the bank.
If you’re still managing your recruitment business with spreadsheets…
Maybe it’s time to upgrade.
Not to our paid plans (though they’re there if you want them), but to actually running your business like a business.
Because you deserve better than sticky notes and crossed fingers.
I like to create these little YouTube videos, to show you how these things work. For two reasons really:
Here’s the video link
