Small tasks are invisible
Ask a recruiter where their week goes and you will get an honest answer that is usually wrong. Not because anyone is hiding anything, but because small tasks are invisible. Five minutes here and fifteen there do not feel like much until you add them up. A one-week desk audit makes those hours visible, so you can decide what to automate, delegate or stop.
Why audit your week?
Most improvement efforts in recruitment start with a tool. The audit starts with the problem. By measuring where time actually goes, you avoid fixing something that is not broken and missing the thing that is. It also gives you real numbers for any business case — see the economics of CV formatting for how to use them.
How to run the audit
- Pick a normal week. Avoid holidays, month-end or unusually quiet periods.
- Log in 15-minute blocks. Fine enough to catch small tasks, coarse enough to sustain.
- Log as you go. Reconstructing a day at 6pm always under-counts admin.
- Use consistent categories. So results can be compared across the team.
- Note interruptions. Task switching has a real cost.
- Total and review. Pivot by category and compare fee-earning with admin time.
Categories to track
| Category | Examples | Fee-earning? |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing | Searching databases, job boards, LinkedIn | Yes |
| Candidate conversations | Screening calls, interviews, offer management | Yes |
| Client work | Briefs, updates, feedback, business development | Yes |
| CV formatting | Re-typing, restyling, anonymising, re-exporting | No |
| Other admin | ATS updates, scheduling, compliance checks | Mostly no |
| Internal | Meetings, reporting, training | Indirect |
A simple log template
A spreadsheet with five columns is enough: Day, Start time, Duration, Category and Note. Add a sixth — Could this be automated? — and answer it honestly for every admin entry.
| Day | Start | Minutes | Category | Note | Automatable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 09:00 | 45 | Candidate conversations | Screening calls × 3 | No |
| Mon | 09:45 | 60 | CV formatting | 3 CVs into client template | Yes |
| Mon | 10:45 | 30 | Other admin | ATS notes | Partly |
| Mon | 11:15 | 45 | Client work | Brief for new role | No |
The audit measures the system, not the person. Make it clear the goal is to remove low-value work from people's weeks, not to judge how they spend it.
Reading the results
- The ratio of fee-earning to non-fee-earning time. This is your headline number.
- The biggest single admin category. For many desks, CV formatting and document preparation come near the top.
- Where admin clusters. If formatting spikes on the days shortlists are due, it competes with client work at the worst possible time.
An example result
An illustrative consultant's week (40 hours) might look like this:
| Category | Hours | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate conversations | 12 | 30% |
| Sourcing | 8 | 20% |
| Client work | 6 | 15% |
| CV formatting | 6 | 15% |
| Other admin | 5 | 12.5% |
| Internal | 3 | 7.5% |
Here, formatting alone takes as much time as all client work. That is the kind of finding that makes the next step obvious.
What to try next week
Pick one category and change one thing:
- If formatting is large: test automated formatting on a week of real CVs. A free trial covers 10 CVs with no card.
- If re-sending documents is large: share CVs through secure links to stop version confusion.
- If volume spikes cause the problem: batch the work with bulk processing.
- If CVs pile up in email: use email-based formatting so it happens without opening another tool.
Running the audit across a team
- Brief everyone together and share the categories in advance.
- Use a shared sheet with one tab per person.
- Report team totals, not individual league tables.
- Share the findings and the one change you will make.
Repeat and compare
Repeat the audit a month later with the same categories and method. The second week is where the value shows: a clear before-and-after that tells you whether the change worked — and what to tackle next.
