How to Create a Recruitment Dashboard in Google Sheets

Wrestling with spreadsheets to track your hiring process can feel like a full-time job in itself. Instead of relying on gut feelings and messy applicant lists, a recruitment dashboard gives you a clear, at-a-glance view of your entire hiring pipeline. This article will walk you through building a powerful recruitment dashboard right in Google Sheets, turning raw applicant data into actionable insights that help you hire smarter and faster.

First Things First: Why Use a Google Sheets Dashboard?

While dedicated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and business intelligence tools are powerful, they aren’t always the right fit for every team. A Google Sheets dashboard is a fantastic, no-cost starting point that punches well above its weight.

It's free and accessible. If you have a Google account, you have everything you need to start.
It's highly collaborative. Easily share the dashboard with hiring managers and stakeholders, allowing everyone to see real-time updates without passing around outdated files.
It's completely customizable. You can track whatever matters most to your organization, without being locked into the predefined reports of a specific software.

Laying the Foundation: Structuring Your Data for Success

A dashboard is only as good as the data powering it. Before you can create a single chart, you need a clean, organized central source of truth. The best way to do this is with a dedicated "Raw Data" tab that functions as your own lightweight ATS.

Create a new Google Sheet and rename the first tab to "Raw Data". This sheet will have one row for every applicant. Don't worry about formatting here, the goal is consistency and clarity.

Essential Columns for Your Applicant Tracker

Set up your "Raw Data" sheet with the following headers. This structure will enable nearly any recruitment report you'll want to create.

Candidate ID: A unique number for each candidate to avoid issues with duplicate names.
Candidate Name: The full name of the applicant.
Application Date: The date the application was received. Make sure this column is formatted as a date (Format > Number > Date).
Job Title: The specific role the candidate applied for.
Department: The department or team the role belongs to (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Engineering).
Source: How did the candidate find you? (e.g., LinkedIn, Indeed, Referral, Company Website).
Current Stage: The applicant's current position in the hiring funnel.
Last Status Update Date: The date the candidate moved into their current stage.
Hiring Manager: The lead person responsible for the hiring decision.
Offer Status: What happened if an offer was extended? (e.g., Offer Extended, Accepted, Declined).
Hire Date: The candidate's official start date. Leave this blank until they are hired.
Notes: Any qualitative notes or next steps.

Pro Tip: Use Data Validation to Keep Data Consistent

Typos are the enemy of accurate reporting. "LinkedIn" vs. "linkedin" can create duplicate categories in your charts. Use Google Sheets' Data Validation feature on columns like Source, Job Title, and Current Stage to ensure consistency.

Here’s how to set it up for your "Current Stage" column:

Create a new tab and name it "Lists." In column A, list all your hiring stages, one per cell (e.g., Applied, Screening, First Interview, Second Interview, Offer, Hired, Rejected).
Go back to your "Raw Data" tab and select the entire "Current Stage" column (Column G if you followed the list above).
Go to Data > Data validation from the menu.
In the popup, for "Criteria," choose "Dropdown (from a range)."
Click the grid icon to select the data range, go to your "Lists" tab, and select the range containing your hiring stages (e.g., 'Lists'!A1:A7).
Click "Save." Now, this column will have a dropdown menu, preventing spelling mistakes and messy data.

Identifying the Right Metrics to Track

Now that your data is structured, you can decide what you want to measure. Your dashboard should answer your team's most important questions at a glance. Here are some of the most valuable recruitment metrics:

Hiring Funnel Health: How many candidates are in each stage of the pipeline right now?
Source Effectiveness: Which channels are bringing in the most (and best) candidates?
Time to Hire: On average, how long does it take to move a candidate from application to hire date?
Offer Acceptance Rate: What percentage of candidates accept your offers?
Open Requisitions by Department: Which teams have the most open roles?

Let's turn these questions into charts and numbers.

How to Build Your Recruitment Dashboard (Step-by-Step)

Create a new tab and name it "Dashboard." This is where all your visualizations will live. Tip: Use one tab for your calculations and raw reports (perhaps called "Dashboard Calcs") and another for the final polished visuals. This keeps your dashboard clean.

1. Creating a Hiring Funnel Chart

This chart shows you where every active candidate is in your pipeline, helping you spot bottlenecks instantly.

The Calculation:

In your "Dashboard Calcs" sheet, list your hiring stages in one column. In the adjacent column, you will count the number of applicants in each stage using the COUNTIF formula.

The Visualization:

Select your stages and their corresponding counts.
Go to Insert > Chart.
Google Sheets will likely suggest a chart type. A Bar Chart or Column Chart is perfect for this.
Customize the titles and colors to make it clear. Cut and paste this chart onto your main "Dashboard" tab.

2. Visualizing Candidate Source

Understand which channels are worth investing more time and money in.

The Calculation:

Just like the funnel, use COUNTIF to count applicants from each source (LinkedIn, Indeed, Referrals, etc.).

The Visualization:

Select your sources and their counts.
Go to Insert > Chart. A Pie Chart or Donut Chart works well here, as it effectively shows parts of a whole.
Move the finished chart to your dashboard.

3. Calculating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Some metrics don't need a full chart - they just need a number. Scorecard charts are excellent for displaying KPIs like Time to Hire and Offer Acceptance Rate.

Calculating Average Time to Hire:

This metric calculates the average number of days between the Application Date and the Hire Date.

First, in a new column in your 'Raw Data' sheet, calculate the duration for each hired candidate. In column M, title it "Duration."
Use this formula and drag it down: =IF(K2<>"", K2-C2, ""). This checks if a hire date exists (K2<>"") and, if so, subtracts the application date from it.
In your dashboard, you can find the average with a simple =AVERAGE('Raw Data'!M:M) formula.

Calculating Offer Acceptance Rate:

This is the number of offers accepted divided by the total number of offers made.

Use a formula that combines counts:

To use Scorecard charts for these metrics:

Click on the cell containing your final calculation (e.g., the average time to hire).
Go to Insert > Chart.
In the chart editor, find the "Scorecard chart" option.
For the Offer Acceptance Rate, be sure to format the number as a percentage. Move to your dashboard.

Bringing It All Together with Slicers and Formatting

Your dashboard is functional, but now let's make it interactive and professional-looking.

Add Slicers for Interactive Filtering

Slicers are filters that let you (or your hiring managers) drill down into the data without having to touch any formulas. For instance, a hiring manager can click their name and see the pipeline data for only their open roles.

Click anywhere on your raw data.
Go to Data > Add a Slicer.
A filter box will appear. In the sidebar options, choose the column you want to filter by, like "Hiring Manager" or "Department."
Move this slicer to your dashboard. Now, when you use it, all the charts connected to that data source will update automatically.

A great dashboard should have an organized, clean layout with consistent colors and clear titles. Arrange your charts and KPIs logically, and resize them to create a balanced look.

Final Thoughts

Building a recruitment dashboard in Google Sheets moves you from drowning in data to being guided by it. By setting up a reliable data tracker and visualizing your most important metrics, you can understand your hiring pipeline, make smarter decisions, and build a more strategic and efficient recruitment process.

While Google Sheets is an amazing starting point, we know that keeping the data updated, connecting other sources (like your job boards or HR system), and creating new analyses can still require a lot of manual work. That's a big part of why we created Graphed. We connect directly to your data sources - even Google Sheets - and let you build dashboards and get answers just by asking questions in plain English. Instead of manually building charts, you can simply ask, "What is our average time to fill by department for Q2?" and get an interactive chart in seconds, giving you back more time to focus on actually hiring great candidates.