Using Trello, Notion or Airtable as an Applicant Tracking System

Using Trello, Notion or Airtable as an applicant tracking system works for a small team hiring a few people a year, if you set it up with one card or row per candidate, fixed stages and a written scorecard. It starts to break with volume, privacy needs and several interviewers.

Why teams build their own tracker

Many small businesses already pay for a general work tool, and a hiring board feels free. It is flexible, familiar and fast to start. A recruiter can have a board with columns for each stage running in an afternoon, and nothing needs approval. That is a real advantage, and it is why this approach is common. The trouble is that these tools were not designed around candidates, so the structure that a hiring tool gives you automatically, such as duplicate detection, scoring against a job, interview links, deletion schedules and an audit trail, has to be built and maintained by you. This guide is honest about both sides. It shows a set-up that works, what tends to go wrong, and the signals that say it is time to move. We do not state what any of these products cost or include, because plans and features change often. Check each product's current pricing and features before you rely on this. For a related comparison see /blog/spreadsheet-vs-applicant-tracking-system-when-to-switch and /blog/hiring-without-an-ats-for-small-businesses.

How the three tools differ in shape

The three tools have different natures, and that shapes how you use them for hiring. A board tool shows work as cards moving across columns, which maps neatly onto a hiring pipeline and is easy for non-technical colleagues to read. A notes and database tool lets you build a table of candidates with linked pages for each person, which suits longer notes and a scorecard per candidate. A spreadsheet-database hybrid lets you define fields, filters, views and forms, which suits structured data, simple reports and an application form that fills the table. None of this is specific to hiring, which is the point. You choose the shape that matches how you think. If you want a visual pipeline, use a board. If you want detailed notes per person, use pages. If you want structured fields and a form, use a database. Whichever you pick, check the current feature list yourself, including form options, permissions, automation limits and export, because those details decide whether the set-up is workable.

A set-up that works

Follow these steps and the home-made tracker will serve you well for a while. First, create one place per job, a board or a table, not one big pool. Second, use one card or row per candidate, never one per application email. Third, fix your stages and keep them few: New, Reviewed, Interview, Decision, Offer, Closed. Fourth, add the same fields to every candidate: source, date applied, contact, CV link, requirement checks, score or rating, and reason for the current status. Fifth, store CVs in one access-controlled folder and link to them, rather than attaching them everywhere. Sixth, write a scorecard with three to six criteria from the job and rate every candidate on the same scale. Seventh, record every rejection with a reason. Eighth, create a template for your reply emails and use it. Ninth, give edit rights only to those who need them and view rights to hiring managers. Tenth, set a calendar reminder to delete or archive old candidates after a fixed period. These ten habits do more than any feature. The tool matters less than the discipline.

What breaks as you grow

The first thing to break is duplicates. The same person applies twice or through two routes, and nothing warns you. The second is scoring: the tool will not read a CV against requirements for you, so every comparison is manual, and consistency drifts as more people rate. The third is privacy. General workspaces often share by link or by workspace, and a candidate's data can end up visible to people with no hiring role. The fourth is the record: a card can be edited or deleted without a trace, so you cannot show who decided what. The fifth is interviewing. Feedback gets typed into comments in different formats, and interviewers who are not workspace members cannot easily add it. The sixth is deletion: there is no built-in way to remove candidates on a schedule, so old data stays. The seventh is reporting, because time to hire, source quality and drop-off need data you did not capture. The eighth is cost creep as you add users, and it is worth checking current pricing for that. None of these is fatal at three candidates. All of them hurt at three hundred.

Strengths and limits compared

The table summarises where a home-made tracker is strong and where a purpose-built one usually is. It describes the general pattern, not any specific product's features, so check current details.

The first two rows favour the home-made option. The rest favour a purpose-built one as volume and risk rise.

A checklist for deciding to stay or move

Answer yes or no. Count the yeses.

Three or more yeses in the moving rows is a clear signal. Two is a warning to fix the set-up. Rules on candidate data differ by country, so check local law before you decide.

A worked example with example numbers

Take an example agency-free business of 12 people hiring a sales coordinator. These figures are examples. It uses a board with six columns. Eighty people apply in two weeks, entered by hand from emails. The recruiter spends about ten minutes per candidate copying details and CV links, which is over thirteen hours. Four candidates are duplicates, found only by accident. Three interviewers add comments in free text, and one forgets to write anything. At the debrief, nobody can compare scores because each person rated different things. The hiring manager asks why a strong candidate was dropped, and the card has no reason. Now the same hire with fixes: a form that creates a card automatically, a duplicate check on email, a three-line scorecard, and a required reason field on rejection. Intake falls to under three hours and the debrief takes twenty minutes. The lesson is that most of the benefit came from structure, not software. Where the structure cannot be built without manual work, a purpose-built tool earns its keep.

Common mistakes with home-made trackers

Creating too many stages, so cards sit in unclear columns. Mixing several jobs in one board so filters become the only way to see a pipeline. Pasting CV text into cards, which spreads personal data into places that are hard to delete. Using personal accounts that disappear when someone leaves. Sharing a board by public link for convenience. Relying on one person's memory for how it works. Leaving rejected candidates in the board forever. Skipping the reason field. Changing stages mid-hire, so old cards no longer fit. Treating automation as free: each automation is something to maintain, and when it fails silently, candidates are missed. Ignoring export. Before you rely on any of these tools, confirm that you can export all your candidate data as a file, and test the export once. A tracker you cannot leave is a risk, however convenient it is today.

Privacy and deletion for a home-made tracker

Candidate data is personal data, so a home-made tracker needs the same care as a bought one. Decide who can open the workspace, and check the sharing settings for each board or page, because convenient links can expose more than intended. Keep CV files in a single folder with limited access and link to them, so deleting a file really removes it. Add a field for the date you may no longer keep each candidate, and a monthly reminder to clear anyone past it. Keep a short note of what you tell candidates about how their data is used, and give them a contact for questions. Test whether you can find and remove everything about one person, including comments, attachments and activity history, because someone may ask. If you cannot do that in a few minutes, the set-up is a risk. Rules on candidate data differ by country, so check local law, and check the tool's current permission and export options before relying on them. A final practical point is ownership. Name one person who maintains the tracker, fixes the stages when they drift, and answers questions from colleagues. Without an owner, every home-made system decays within a year, because small shortcuts pile up until nobody trusts the data.

Where Rezumz fits

Rezumz is for the point where the home-made board starts to creak. It keeps a hire in one place: a job with must-have requirements, an apply page with screening questions and a data notice, CVs scored against the job with the supporting CV lines quoted, duplicate flags, interview scheduling, scorecards, feedback versions, a decision record and an offer letter with approval. You can set a deletion period for a job's candidates and download data as CSV. It never rejects anyone for you. You can import candidates from a CSV, so an existing board can be exported and brought across. It does not offer deep human resources or payroll features, or one-click posting to job boards. Pricing: a free plan with 2 free candidate analyses, $29 a month, $199 a year, or a limited $499 lifetime plan; Team is $79 a month or $699 a year for up to 10 teammates, for teams with 4 or more recruiters. See /pricing, or try /demo, and read /blog/how-to-move-from-a-spreadsheet-to-an-ats-without-losing-candidates for the migration steps.

When not to switch, and how to switch well

Do not switch in the middle of a hire, because it splits the record. Do not switch because the board looks untidy: tidy it first, using the ten habits above. Do not switch if you hire once or twice a year and everything works. If you do switch, do it between hires. Export your board to a file, clean the duplicates, and import only the active candidates. Keep the old board read-only for a few months, then delete it on a date you set. Tell your team where the new record lives and who can see it. Rules on retaining candidate data differ by country, so check local law before you decide how long to keep the old one. Run one real hire in the new tool before you commit, as described at /blog/how-to-run-a-30-day-ats-trial-with-real-hiring. If it does not beat your board on hours and clarity, stay where you are. A good home-made tracker is a perfectly respectable answer for a small business, as long as it is used with care.