Clockwork Recruiting Blog

When carrying out a search project, it helps to have as much information on a person as possible. The more information you have on a person, the better you’re able to evaluate them as a candidate, and the more data you’ll have to analyze your firm’s People Database.

While Clockwork comes with all of the standard fields you need, some of our customers have specific information they want to track. That’s where Custom Fields come in. When you need to capture specific information about a person, regardless of project or candidate status, Custom Fields allow you to capture this data and use it in a multitude of ways. 

Let’s say for example you're a partner at a firm and you have a long list of clients that you've worked with over the years in the tech sector in the Bay Area. Subsequently, you want to add these folks to an internal project called  “Clients - Tech Indus., Bay Area.” If you're using this list primarily for marketing purposes, you want to label it as such and focus the project for that specific function.

Running regular status calls is an essential component of successful retained search. You come together weekly with your client and team to review completed work, align expectations, and establish next steps for the coming week. This cadence not only keeps your client informed, but it also serves to keep them engaged and providing the necessary feedback you need to keep your search running smoothly and effectively.

You’re two weeks into a new search. Having set a sound search strategy with your client at the onset of the project, it’s enabled your researcher to make good progress sourcing a solid list of potential candidates. You want to review the progress with your client on your weekly status call but need a better way to present such a lengthy list of candidates. One that’s easy for the client to view and provide feedback in order to keep the project moving forward efficiently and effectively.

Managing inordinate numbers of candidates throughout a search project can become a logistical nightmare. For each search, researchers and recruiters inevitably have to make countless contact information updates, review work history, capture notes and status changes, log outreach efforts, and rate potential candidate fit. On top of all that, candidate information can live in a number of places—making this even more challenging to get a handle on.

In Retained Search, a recruiter’s candidate screening process has a major impact on the progress, duration, and success of search projects. While many methods are used to track and record “scorecards” when sourcing candidates, Clockwork’s built-in process methodology incorporates an easy, efficient, effective—and trackable—method to qualify or disqualify people during the research stage of a successful retained search process.