HR & Recruiting

Recruitment forms are judged by candidates as a sample of what working with you is like, which raises the cost of a bad one beyond the applications you lose. A twenty-field form with a mandatory cover letter tells a strong candidate, accurately, that this organisation values process over people.

Ask for what you will actually use to screen. If nobody reads cover letters, remove the field. If a portfolio decides the first cut, put it first and make everything else optional. The honest test is whether you can name the decision each field informs.

Structured questions beat free text for anything you plan to compare. Notice period as a select, salary expectation as a range, right-to-work as a yes/no — these let you sort a hundred applications in one pass, which is exactly what free-text equivalents prevent.

Instaform represents each application as a Deal moving through screening, interview and offer, with the CV attached to the candidate Contact. Reviewers work from the same record rather than a forwarded attachment, and rejected candidates stay searchable — which matters, because the second-best candidate for one role is frequently the right hire for the next.