Most recruiters I know who go solo start the same way. A laptop, LinkedIn network, a few clients who followed them out, and a spreadsheet with tabs called Clients, Candidates and revenue.
I understand the appeal. When you've just left a firm, every dollar you don't spend feels like a good decision. Excel is already on your laptop and it does what you tell it.
The trouble is that it only does what you tell it. I've spent more than 15 years in recruitment, ten of them helping build one of the largest boutique search firms in its market, and now I run my own desk. The cost of the spreadsheet doesn't arrive as one bad month. It's the client who said “come back to me in March” and didn't hear from you in March, because March was busy and the sheet doesn't ring.
So here's my answer to the question in the title, including the cases where a spreadsheet is fine and you should keep your money.
- A spreadsheet is fine for your first few months and your first handful of clients. It's free and you already know how to use it
- It stops working when your follow-ups start living in your head. On a solo desk, a missed follow-up is a missed fee, and nobody else is there to catch it
- A recruitment CRM earns its place by remembering every conversation and telling you who's due a call, with candidates, clients, jobs and invoices joined up
- If you spend more time updating the sheet than using it, you've outgrown it
- Pick a CRM built for one person: set up in an afternoon, reads your inbox, priced for one seat. I built Annie for this. 10 days free, no card
What a spreadsheet gets right
I'll give the spreadsheet its due. It costs nothing and is super easy to get started with.
For your first few months on your own, it can be the right call. With five or six active clients, a dozen live candidates and a couple of open roles, you can hold most of the desk in your head. The sheet backs up your memory, and your memory is still doing the work.
Where the spreadsheet starts costing you money
The problems start when the sheet stops being a backup and becomes the system. Here's where I see it break on a solo desk.
Follow-ups live in your head
A spreadsheet has no idea what day it is. You can add a “next action” column, and I've seen some very ambitious ones, but someone has to open it every morning, sort it and act on it. On a busy week, that someone skips it.
In a firm, a manager or a colleague might catch the dropped ball. On your own, a missed follow-up is a missed fee, and you'll never find out which one it was.
It only knows what you typed
Your real history with a client sits in your inbox, your call log and your calendar. The sheet holds whatever you remembered to copy across, usually on a Friday afternoon, usually from memory.
So the “last contacted” column goes out of date the moment you stop updating it. That's the column you need most.
Clients and candidates sit on different tabs
In recruitment the same person is often both. Today's candidate is next year's hiring manager. In a spreadsheet that's two rows on two tabs that don't know about each other, plus the duplicate you added in a hurry.
History splits across tabs, and one day you call the same person twice in a week with two different pitches.
Fees fall between the cracks
Placements, invoices, payment terms and guarantee periods tend to end up in a second spreadsheet, your accounting tool, or nowhere. Then a candidate leaves in week ten of a 90-day guarantee and you're digging through email to find what you agreed.
Or you place someone and forget to raise the invoice while the offer is fresh. I've seen it happen to good recruiters. It's an awkward email to send two months late.
Candidate data you can't find on request
If you place people in the UK, a candidate can ask for a copy of the personal data you hold on them, and the ICO says you must respond within one month (opens in a new tab). That's a reasonable request when everything sits in one system. It's a long afternoon when their details are spread across three spreadsheets, a downloads folder and an old laptop.
What a recruitment CRM does for a solo desk
A recruitment CRM is a database built around people and the history between you and them. On a one-person desk, here's what that buys you.
- One record per person, with the whole history. Emails, calls, notes, CVs and the roles you discussed, in one place. Open the record before a call and you know where you left it.
- Reminders that come to you. The CRM tells you who's due a follow-up. You don't go looking.
- Your inbox does the data entry. A good CRM syncs with Gmail or Outlook, so “last contacted” is right without you typing anything.
- BD and delivery on the same desk. Your prospects sit next to your live jobs, so business development doesn't stop the minute you're busy filling a role. Most of the feast and famine I see on solo desks comes from exactly this.
- Your own database works first. When a role opens, you search your candidates by title, notice period and market before you touch a job board. The people you placed two years ago are often the first worth calling.
- Fees tracked until they're paid. Raise the invoice from the placement, watch the due date, and know when the guarantee ends.
- Numbers you can trust. Which clients bill, which activity turns into placements, and where this year's fees are coming from.
Most of this is admin, which is the point. Salesforce's research found sales reps spend just 28% of their week selling (opens in a new tab), with most of the rest going on things like deal management and data entry. A solo recruiter is the salesperson, the delivery team and the accounts department at once. Every hour the system gives back is an hour on the phone.
When a spreadsheet is still enough
I'm not going to tell everyone to buy software. A spreadsheet is still enough if most of these are true for you:
- You have fewer than about five active clients
- You can name everyone you need to call this week without looking
- You make a handful of placements a year and invoice each one the same day
- You update the sheet every day, and you enjoy it
If two or more of those are false, you've outgrown it. The quicker test: if you spend more time updating the sheet than using it, it has become a second job.
What to look for in a CRM when you work alone
Most recruitment CRMs were built for agencies with 20 or 50 seats, an ops manager and an implementation budget. On your own, you need a different list.
- Setup in an afternoon. Import your LinkedIn connections and your old spreadsheet, connect your email, and start. If it needs an implementation project, it wasn't built for you.
- It reads your inbox for you. If you have to log every email by hand, you'll stop by week three.
- It tells you what to do next. Storing data is the easy part. On a solo desk, the CRM should point you at today's calls, the follow-ups that are due and the proposals that went quiet.
- Business dev, jobs and invoices together. Three tools for one person is two too many.
- Pricing for one person. You shouldn't pay for seats you'll never fill.
- Your data stays yours. Easy export, no contract to get out of, and nothing sent in your name unless you send it.
The best recruitment CRM for solo recruiters
I'll be upfront: I built one. Most CRMs remember everything and wait for you to search them. I built Annie to read my network and my market every morning and tell me who to call. She's the recruitment CRM for solo and boutique recruiters who win their own clients.
Here's what she does on a one-person desk:
- A call list every morning at 09:00. Ranked by who has a reason to hear from you, with the reason, the source and an opening line for each name.
- Hiring signals from your own network. Funding rounds, leadership changes, expansions and live roles at companies where you already know someone. Live market data covers the UAE and the GCC, the UK and the US.
- Drafts you send yourself. Annie writes the approach or the chase, it opens in your own Gmail or Outlook, and you press send. Nothing goes out in your name otherwise.
- The whole desk in one place. Contacts, companies, candidates, jobs, a BD pipeline, client shortlists, placements and invoices.
- Moving in takes about 15 minutes. Drop in your LinkedIn export and connect your inbox, or bring your data across from Bullhorn, Vincere, JobAdder, Loxo, Manatal, Recruit CRM or any CSV, with a dry run before anything is written.
Solo is $129 a month, or $1,290 a year, with everything included and no contract. See pricing.
The fairest test is your own desk. Start a 10-day free trial on your own network and inbox, no credit card needed. Or book a call with me and I'll show you who Annie would have put on your list this morning.
Michael Stubbs has spent more than 15 years in recruitment, ten of them helping build one of the largest boutique search firms in its market. He now runs his own desk and is the founder of Annie, the recruitment CRM that tells you who to call. He is also the founder of Vantage Search Group, a research-led executive search firm.