Forty resumes hit your inbox for the one role you posted last Tuesday. Now what? This job applicant tracker pulls every opening, candidate, interview, and offer into a single file you own — so you stop losing names in email threads without onboarding a full applicant tracking system. It is built for hiring managers, small business owners, and team leads who need a hiring spreadsheet that works on day one, in Excel or Google Sheets.
One file, the whole hiring pipeline
The workbook opens with a Job Openings tab where you log each role by position, department, hiring manager, status, type, location, pay range, and target hire date. As you add candidates, each opening counts its own applicants, interviews, and hires automatically.
The Applicants tab is one clean pipeline. Every candidate sits under an opening with a color-coded Status — New, Screening, Interviewing, Offer, Hired, with Rejected and Withdrawn as exits — and the workbook fills in their average interview score, number of interviews, and days in the pipeline for you.
Score every candidate the same way
The Scorecard tab is what makes this more than a list. Rate each candidate 1–5 on the same criteria — Skills & Experience, Problem Solving, Communication, Role & Team Fit, and Motivation — and the workbook computes one weighted score on a 0–5 scale. Because everyone is measured on the same rubric, two interviewers’ numbers finally mean the same thing, and the strongest candidate for what the role actually needs rises to the top. The weights live on the Configure tab, so you can tune them to each role.
The Interviews tab keeps a dated log of every conversation — stage, format, interviewer, impression, and a color-coded recommendation, with a specific note right beside the score. The Offers tab tracks each offer from draft to accepted, with salary and start date.
A dashboard that updates as you type
The Dashboard tab is the Monday-morning hiring picture: open roles, the applicant pipeline funnel, which sources actually produce hires, open roles by department, and headline metrics like average days a role has been open and your offer acceptance rate. No pivot tables to refresh, no formulas to fix — it all recalculates as you fill in the tabs.
The Configure tab is the differentiator. Every dropdown in the workbook reads from one place, so you can rename a department, add a job board you just started using, or change the status labels to match your own language. Change it once and every tab follows.
Excel and Google Sheets — you pick
This is a true cross-app workbook. Use the .xlsx in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc, or open the included link and click Make a copy for a native Google Sheets version — every dropdown, formula, and color already set up, no importing and nothing to rebuild.
What you get
- The Job Applicant Tracker workbook (
.xlsx) — eight tabs, ready to use - A worked-example file pre-filled with a sample pipeline so you can see how it works
- A one-click Google Sheets copy — a native version, no import needed
- A Start Here quick-start guide (PDF)
- A Fair & Consistent Hiring method guide (PDF) — structured interviews and weighted scoring, in plain language
- A printable interview scorecard (PDF) and a quick-reference card (PDF)
Download once, drop it on OneDrive, Google Drive, or SharePoint, and you have a working hiring pipeline before your next req opens. You own the file outright — no seats, no monthly fee, no vendor holding your candidate data.
Want to try it first? A free interview scorecard lets you score your shortlist on the same weighted criteria before you buy the full tracker.
This workbook is an organizing and record-keeping tool, not legal or HR advice. The example company and people are fictional and illustrative; employment and record-keeping rules vary by location, so follow the requirements that apply to you.
