Kanban for recruiters: tracking candidates, hiring managers and feedback loops
Recruiting looks like a pipeline: applicants become screened candidates, then interviewees, then offers. Applicant tracking systems model that pipeline well. What they model less well is the thing that actually slows hiring: waiting. Waiting for the hiring manager's feedback. Waiting for interviewers to free up a slot. Waiting for budget approval on the offer. Waiting for the candidate to decide.
Slow hiring costs candidates. Good people accept other offers while your process waits on an internal email.
One row per role
Each open role is a row: "Senior designer", "Warehouse supervisor", "Sales rep (North)". The board shows every role together, which an applicant tracking system often does not.
Columns that show who has the ball
- Mine: recruiter actions: post the role, screen applicants, schedule interviews, prepare the offer
- Other: what you are waiting on, with names: hiring manager feedback on CVs, interview panel availability, finance approval, candidate decision
- Next Steps: upcoming stages: final interviews, references, start date
- Done: completed steps
Candidate details stay in your applicant tracking system. The board tracks the actions around each role.
Feedback is the bottleneck
The most common delay in hiring is feedback. A hiring manager who takes a week to review CVs or interview notes can lose the best candidates. Put every pending feedback request in Other with the manager's name. Axtio shows the days waiting and flags anything over a week under "to chase", which gives you a fair, factual way to nudge.
Agree turnaround times up front
At the start of each role, agree with the hiring manager:
- CV feedback within two working days
- Interview feedback within one working day
- Offer approval within one day of the final interview
Then the board shows when those agreements are slipping.
Keep candidate data out of the board
Candidate personal data belongs in systems designed and approved for it. Keep board actions generic ("collect feedback on shortlist") rather than adding names, salaries or notes. That keeps you on the right side of privacy rules such as the GDPR, which the UK ICO explains in its guidance for organisations.
For agency recruiters
Agency recruiters juggle clients and candidates. One row per client role, with actions for both sides: client feedback in Other with the client contact's name, candidate follow-ups in Mine. See manage multiple clients with less overhead.
The weekly hiring review
Once a week, look at every role and ask: where is the ball, how long has it been there, and who needs a nudge today? Hiring speeds up when waiting becomes visible. See the waiting-on-someone problem.