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Be the agency that reports before the client asks

Every active client gets a short update built from the week's real movement — who was submitted, who interviewed, what's sitting with them. Drafted Friday morning, so the client hears from you on a good week and not only when something has gone wrong.

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Wexley Group — week to 8 Aug

3 roles live

Moved this week

  • Nadia Osei — 2nd stage, interviewed Tue
  • Rahul Kapoor — tech screen booked Wed
  • 2 new CVs submitted, Platform Engineer

Waiting on Wexley

  • Feedback on Nadia — 4 days
  • 3 CVs unreviewed since Monday
  • Interview slots for the Data role

Needs a decision

  • Infra role — no shortlist movement in 3 weeks
  • Salary band below market on 2 of 3 roles

The middle column is the one that changes behaviour. Most agencies never send it, because writing it out feels like criticising the client.

Works with

  • Google Sheets
  • Google Docs
  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Google Calendar
  • Slack

It builds each update from your own pipeline record, your sent mail and your calendar. Where you run an ATS it can read stage data from there too, but none is required — and since no ATS publishes a trigger, this runs as a scheduled build either way.

The chore

How this goes right now

  1. Client updates are the work that only happens when a desk is calm, which means they mostly don't happen. And the pattern that replaces them is worse than silence: you contact the client when you need something. A CV to review, feedback that's overdue, interview slots. Every message from you is an ask, so over a few months you train a hiring manager to associate your name with being chased.

  2. Then there's what the absence of reporting does to your position. A client who doesn't know that you submitted four people, arranged three interviews and turned down two speculative CVs this week has no way to distinguish you from the agency who sent one CV and went quiet. When they decide who to give the next role to, or which agency to cut when budgets tighten, the one they can't see working is easy to cut. You did the work. You just never told anybody.

  3. And when a desk does write updates, they get written on a Friday afternoon from memory, which is when they're least accurate and most likely to omit the awkward part. The genuinely valuable thing to tell a client is that three CVs have been sitting unreviewed since Monday and their infra role hasn't moved in three weeks — but writing that at four o'clock on a Friday feels confrontational, so it gets softened into nothing and the update becomes a list of things going fine.

The difference

Same week's work, made visible to the person paying for it

Not a report for its own sake. The point is that the client can see the effort, and that the things blocking you get said out loud in a form that isn't a complaint.

Updating clients ad hoc
A standing weekly update
Contact only when you need something from them
One short update per client, built from the week's real activity
Reports written Friday afternoon from memory, if at all
Movement, blockers and asks separated into three clear sections
The awkward truths softened out before sending
The stalled role named plainly, because a summary makes it factual
Work done and never seen by the person deciding your future
A visible record of effort when PSL decisions get made
Every client getting a different standard depending on the week
Every client treated the same, busy week or not

Try it

Walk through it yourself

This is the actual shape of the workflow — the same trigger, the same steps, the same draft waiting for your say-so. Click through it.

Send weekly client updates

Scheduled checkGoogle Sheets

Friday build, 08:00

Runs on the morning you choose, early enough that you can read and send before the client's day fills up. It assembles from the week's actual record rather than asking anyone to recall it.

What it does

  1. Gather what moved per client this week

    Wexley: 2 submissions, 1 second-stage interview, 1 tech screen booked. Calder Rail: 3 submissions, no movement. Northgate: 1 offer accepted.

    Google Sheets

  2. Work out what's sitting with the client

    Wexley: feedback outstanding on Nadia for 4 days, 3 CVs unreviewed since Monday. Calder: interview slots requested Tuesday, no reply.

    Gmail

  3. Check what's already booked for next week

    Wexley has 2 interviews scheduled Tue and Thu. Calder has none, which is the reason their pipeline hasn't moved and worth stating.

    Google Calendar

  4. Build one update per client in your house format

    3 updates drafted. Each one: what moved, what's with them, what's needed. Northgate's leads with the accepted offer and asks for a testimonial.

    Google Docs

Draft document — nothing has been sent

Wexley Group — weekly update, w/c 4 August

Roles live
3
In process
7 candidates
Prepared
Friday 08:00
What moved this week
  • Nadia Osei completed second stage on Tuesday with Alan Brightwell.
  • Rahul Kapoor's tech screen is booked for Wednesday 11:00.
  • Two further CVs submitted for Platform Engineer on Thursday.
  • One speculative application reviewed and not progressed.
Waiting with you
  • Feedback on Nadia Osei — second stage was four days ago.
  • Three CVs for Platform Engineer, submitted Monday, not yet reviewed.
  • Interview availability for the Data Engineer role.
Worth a conversation
  • The Infrastructure role has had no shortlist movement in three weeks. Two candidates we approached declined at the salary offered.
  • Benchmarking on the Platform and Infrastructure bands suggests both sit below the market rate for the experience level specified.

Send these 3 client updates?

Worth reading the third section on each — that's where the useful friction lives, and you'll know whether this is the week to raise the salary conversation with a particular manager or whether it needs a call instead of a line in an email.

Once you approveGmail

Sent, with a record of what you told them

Each update goes to its client from your mailbox. A copy is kept against the account, so when a client says nobody told them the infra role was stalling, there is a dated document that says you did. The salary conversation on Wexley stays flagged for you, because a benchmark in a weekly summary is an opener, not the conversation itself.

Friday's update, already written.

Built from what happened, not from what you can remember at four o'clock.

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How it works

What it's actually doing

Assembling a week of activity into the three things a client actually wants to know: what happened, what you need from them, and what's genuinely stuck.

  1. 1
    • Google Sheets
    • ExExcel

    Reads the week's real movement

    Submissions, interviews, offers and rejections from your own record. Not a status field somebody updated on a good day.

  2. 2
    • Gmail
    • OuOutlook

    Works out what's sitting on their side

    Outstanding feedback, unreviewed CVs, slots you asked for. This section is the one clients act on, and it comes from your sent mail rather than your memory.

  3. 3
    • Google Sheets
    • Google Calendar

    Names what isn't working

    A role with no movement in three weeks, or a band that keeps getting declined. Stated as an observation with the evidence, which is much easier to send than a complaint.

  4. 4
    • GoGoogle Docs
    • Gmail
    • Slack

    Writes it in your format, per client

    Some clients want three bullets, some want a document. Set once per account, and the copy is kept so there's a record of what you said and when.

You stay in control

It writes the update. Which truths land this week is your call.

A client update is a commercial document. Telling a hiring manager their salary band is wrong is right most weeks and badly wrong in the week they're fighting for budget — and knowing the difference is account management, which is the part that isn't automatable.

  1. Step one

    It drafts

  2. Step two — you

    You read it and approve

  3. Step three

    Only then does it send

Nothing reaches a client unread

Every update waits for you. These go to people who decide whether you keep the account, and they should carry a consultant's judgement about tone.

It doesn't soften or sharpen on its own

Blockers are stated factually with the evidence beside them. Whether to lead with the stalled role or bury it in the third section is an editorial decision you make.

It never comments on candidates as people

Updates report process — submitted, interviewed, declined. It doesn't score, rank or assess anybody, and no opinion about a candidate's quality goes into a client-facing document.

Bad news gets flagged, not just sent

Where something in the update would land badly as text — a fee dispute, a candidate withdrawing over the client's behaviour — it tells you rather than writing it into an email.

Setup

What setting this up involves

  1. 1

    Connect

    • Google Sheets or Excel, holding your live pipeline
    • Gmail or Outlook, so updates come from the account owner
    • Google Docs, if your clients get a formatted document
    • Google Calendar, to include what's booked for next week
  2. 2

    Tell it how you work

    • Which clients get an update, and how often — not every account wants weekly
    • Your format per client: three bullets, a document, or a Slack message
    • What counts as stalled for you — two weeks, three, or role-dependent
    • Whether to include benchmarking observations or keep them for calls
    • Who at each client should receive it, and who should be copied
  3. 3

    Then it runs

    About 40 minutes, once

    Most of it is deciding per-client format and cadence, which is a conversation worth having anyway. After that the updates build themselves and you're spending five minutes reading rather than an hour writing.

Edge cases

Where it's careful, and what it won't do

What it handles

  • A week where nothing moved

    It says so, plainly, rather than padding. "No movement this week; three CVs still with you since Monday" is a more useful message than a paragraph dressed up to look like progress.

  • Several contacts at one client

    A hiring manager and a talent lead get the same facts, but the update goes to the person who acts on it with the other copied, rather than two near-identical emails arriving separately.

  • A client who's gone quiet entirely

    Where nothing has come back for weeks, the update shifts shape — it becomes shorter and leads with the ask, and it's flagged to you as an account that probably needs a call rather than another email.

  • News that shouldn't be in an email

    A candidate withdrawing because of how an interview went, or a dispute over terms. Those are pulled out of the draft and raised with you, because a written record of them helps nobody.

What it does not do

  • Send without you

    Every update is read and approved. There's no unattended mode for client-facing reporting, and there shouldn't be.

  • Share anything a candidate told you in confidence

    Process facts only. What someone said about their reasons for moving, or their salary expectations, stays out of client-facing documents unless you put it there.

  • Pass judgement on the people in your pipeline

    It reports what happened to whom. It doesn't rate, rank or grade anybody, and no evaluative language about a person goes into an update on its own.

  • Negotiate or escalate

    It can state that a salary band keeps getting declined. Having that conversation, and deciding when, stays with the person who owns the relationship.

Time back

Four to six hours a month, and accounts that renew

Time back
4–6 hrs a month
Spent on
Accounts you keep
What it costs
$49 / monthGrowthplan — see what’s included

How that’s worked out: Based on six to ten active accounts at twenty to thirty minutes each to write a genuine update, which is why most desks write them sporadically or not at all. The return that matters isn't the hours — it's that a client making a PSL decision can see a documented record of the work you did, which is invisible to them by default.

Fair questions

The questions account managers ask first

Our clients don't want another weekly email.

Some don't, and cadence is per client for exactly that reason — plenty of accounts are better served fortnightly or only while a role is live. What clients consistently do want is the section listing what sits with them. Hiring managers are usually not deliberately slow, they've just lost track of what you're waiting for, and a three-line list of it is the most welcome part of the message.

Won't listing what they haven't done annoy them?

It reads very differently in a standing weekly summary than as a one-off chasing email, and that's the whole reason to send it routinely. A recurring update where "waiting with you" is a normal section makes the same information procedural rather than pointed. The desks that adopt this generally report that the awkward section is the one that gets replied to.

How does it know something is stalled rather than just slow?

You define the threshold, per role type if you want — two weeks without shortlist movement, three, or something role-dependent. It doesn't infer a judgement; it applies your rule and shows the underlying dates, so the client sees "no movement in three weeks" alongside the facts rather than an assertion they might dispute.

More off the same desk

Other things that keep falling off the list

The same reporting job elsewhere

FAQ

Questions worth answering properly

What actually goes in the update?

Three sections: what moved this week, what's waiting with the client, and anything genuinely stuck that's worth a conversation. The middle one is the section most agencies never send and the one clients act on most, because hiring managers usually aren't stalling deliberately — they've just lost track.

Can different clients get different formats?

Yes, set per account. Some want three bullets in an email, some want a document they can forward to their own leadership, and some want it in a shared Slack channel. The content is assembled the same way; the shape is yours to define per client.

Does it send automatically?

No. Every update waits for you to read and approve. These go to the people who decide whether your agency keeps the account, and the judgement about what to raise this week — and what to save for a call — is exactly the part worth keeping human.

What if there's genuinely nothing to report?

It says that, briefly, and leads with what's outstanding on their side. A short honest update in a quiet week is more credible than a padded one, and it keeps the cadence intact so the client doesn't only hear from you when something is wrong.

Will it include information candidates gave us privately?

No. Updates carry process facts — who was submitted, who interviewed, what stage things reached. Salary expectations, reasons for leaving and anything else told to you in confidence stay out unless you choose to include them.

Do we need an ATS for this?

No. It builds from your pipeline record, your sent mail and your calendar, and a spreadsheet works perfectly well. If you do run an ATS it can read stage data from there as well, but the update never depends on someone having kept a status field current.

Let clients see the work you're already doing

Connect your pipeline and mailbox, and set a cadence per client. Friday's updates are drafted before you're at your desk.

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