Optimising business processes with a CRM: what we built for a recruitment agency

A CRM shortens a process when every person, order or deal has one record that moves through the same stages, and anyone on the team can see where it stands without asking in a chat. Installing the software does not do that by itself. You first write down how the work really runs, then build the stages and fields around it. Here is how that looked in a CRM we built in 2026 for a recruitment agency that places workers in warehouses and factories in Poland.

Starting point: more than 10 Excel sheets and several chats

The agency handles hundreds of candidates across client projects, housing and paperwork. Before the CRM, the data sat in more than 10 Excel sheets, and information about housing and dismissals was scattered across messenger chats. No single record followed a person from the first application to work and later to dismissal. Some applications from different channels were lost, and nobody could say which channel or recruiter brought in people who stayed.

We described the plan for this project at the specification stage in an earlier article on business process automation. This one is about what came out of it.

One record from application to dismissal

The most important decision concerned the data model. Every candidate has one record, and every stage of their path is a status of that record. A recruiter does not copy a person from an "applications" sheet to a "workers" sheet; they move the card to the next column on a kanban board. A dismissal is recorded on the same card, so the history from application to leaving stays in one place.

The first version, built in stages between May and August 2026, includes:

• a candidate list and a kanban board by status;
• projects, meaning client orders, and tasks for the team;
• a dismissals register;
• GDPR (RODO) information clauses, with a record that each candidate received them;
• analytics by status and by application source;
• 4 access roles and an event log showing who changed what;
• an interface in Polish and Ukrainian.

Screenshots are on the HR CRM case page.

What we left out on purpose

At the scoping call we agreed on what the first version would not have: calls made from the CRM, a mobile app, and a live connection to recruiters' personal phones. Recruiters open the CRM in a phone browser, and the layout works there. Each of them would have added weeks of work, and calling would also have added monthly telephony fees, for things the team could manage without. We would rather hand over a smaller system that people use every day and add the missing parts once the team knows what it lacks.

Data first, reports later

The managers wanted placements and retention per recruiter, freelance recruiters shown separately for payouts, and the reasons and timing of dismissals. The first version shows the funnel by status and by source. Most of the other reports can be built from what the system already logs, because every change of status is saved with a date and an author. A payout report will also need the payout rules for freelancers, which is one new field set, not a new system. As we told the client while scoping the project, once the data sits in one database, most statistics are a question of writing the right query. That is why we began with stages and required fields and left the dashboards for later.

A ready-made CRM or one built for you

For sales in a typical B2B company, a ready-made CRM is usually the faster and cheaper start. Popular products such as Pipedrive allow several pipelines, but each of them models a deal moving towards a sale. A recruitment agency's process carries on after the "sale": housing, the first day at work, dismissal, payouts for freelancers. Forcing that into deal pipelines would mean workarounds in every report. Agencies can also look at recruitment systems (ATS); before choosing one, check whether it covers what happens after hiring, such as housing and dismissals. A custom CRM makes sense when your process differs from a standard sales funnel and the team will work in the system every day.

Signs that it is time for a CRM

• the same client or order exists in several sheets, and nobody is sure which copy is current;
• to find out where a job stands, someone has to ask in a chat;
• you cannot say which channel brings in clients who stay;
• data about one person or order is split between a spreadsheet, email and messengers.

We build CRM systems as part of our process automation service. Send us a short description of how your process runs today through the contact page, and we will tell you whether a setting in software you already have, a ready-made CRM or a custom one fits it best.