jezweb Track candidate
Hiring is a startup's biggest time-sink and biggest leverage. This skill makes the pipeline state crisp and current.
When this skill fires
- New candidate sourced or referred
- Candidate advances stages
- Candidate goes quiet (>7 days no response)
- Boss or recruiter asks "where are we with X?"
The candidate entry shape
wiki/contacts/<candidate-slug>/contact.md:
---
slug: <name-kebab>
kind: contact
category: candidate
name: <Full name>
role_open: <role-slug> # e.g. senior-engineer-q3-2026
current_stage: <stage> # sourced | contacted | first_call | case_study | offer | hired | passed
linkedin: <url>
email: <email>
referrer: <person who referred, optional>
sourced_at: <date>
last_touched_at: <date>
created: <today>
last_updated: <today>
last_edited_by: recruiter
last_change_summary: <what changed in this update>
---
# <Candidate name>
## Background
[2-3 sentence summary of who they are and why this role]
## Stage history
- <date>: sourced via <channel>
- <date>: contacted; reply received within X days
- <date>: first call (notes in research/<date>-<slug>-first-call.md)
- ...
When advancing stages
- Update
current_stage+last_touched_at - Append to "Stage history" section in the body
- If first-call+ or later, file the conversation notes to
wiki/research/ - If candidate goes quiet, surface to boss after 7 days
Anti-patterns
- Letting a "contacted" candidate sit > 7 days without a follow-up nudge
- Filing a candidate without naming the role they're for
- Marking "passed" without a reason — recruiter needs to capture why for future reference (skills mismatch, salary expectation, timing, culture)
- Ghosting candidates who interviewed — every candidate who reached first-call deserves a polite no