Is Formatix an executive search CRM or ATS?

Not a full CRM. Formatix produces the documents: assessment reports, candidate profiles, shortlist decks, trackers and talent-review packs, in your own template. For each search, Mandates also keeps the candidates, a pipeline board from longlist to placement, interview notes and the client report. It works alongside your ATS or CRM rather than replacing it: it reads candidates from JobAdder, Salesforce or HubSpot, has an API, and you can also simply upload files or use it from ChatGPT, Claude or other AI assistants that support connectors.

Does Formatix assess candidates or interpret psychometric results?

No. The consultant owns the assessment. Formatix never administers, scores, interprets or generates psychometric assessments. You upload your notes, ratings and the results you hold, and Formatix lays them into your branded report, drawing the scores you supply as charts. In Mandates it checks longlist profiles against the brief's checklist and shows the quote behind every tick, so the consultant can see why someone is on the list; the judgement stays with the consultant.

Can Formatix track candidates through a search, like an applicant tracking system?

Yes, for each mandate. Candidates move on a pipeline board through Longlist, Shortlisted, Contacted, Interested, Submitted to client, Client interview, Offer and Placed, or are dropped with a reason. When a candidate replies to approved outreach, marking the reply interested or not moves them along the pipeline.

Does Formatix help with candidate interviews?

Yes. Consultants keep interview notes on each candidate, rated 1 to 5 against each must-have and overall, and can generate an interview pack in Word or PDF with fit against the brief, risk flags and screening questions written by AI from the brief, one for each must-have. The consultant runs the interview and makes the call.

Where do the candidates on a mandate come from?

From LinkedIn, through the consultant's own Chrome or LinkedIn Recruiter results sent to Formatix, from the firm's own CV database in Formatix, and from a connected JobAdder, Salesforce or HubSpot. Each one is scored against the brief, with the lines from their profile that prove each requirement.

Can we use the report templates we already have?

Yes, that is the usual starting point. Upload a document your firm already sends and Formatix turns it into a template, preserving fonts, colours, spacing and layout. If you have no house template, it can build one from your website branding.

Which formats can we produce?

Word (DOCX), PowerPoint (PPTX), Excel (XLSX) and PDF. Word and PowerPoint outputs stay fully editable so the consultant can make final changes.

Where is candidate and employee data processed?

In the UK and EU, under GDPR. Nothing you upload is used to train AI models.

Executive search

Beyond the CV: the documents executive search firms bill for, in your own template

A retained search is judged on its documents: the assessment report on each finalist, the one-page profiles the board reads, the shortlist deck presented at the progress meeting and, for in-house teams, the succession pack that goes to the nominations committee. Formatix takes the material you already hold, the candidate's CV, your interview notes, the ratings you gave and the psychometric results you are licensed to use, and lays it into your firm's own Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF template. The judgement is yours. The assembly is ours.

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No credit card. Your 10 free credits are valid for 14 days.

Five documents, one set of inputs

Each page explains the document, what goes in, what comes out and how your brand is kept, with a sample built for a fictional candidate on a Formatix-owned demo template.

Mandates: candidates, pipeline and interviews in one place

Formatix also runs the search around those documents. Each mandate keeps its own candidates, a pipeline from longlist to placement, interview notes and interview packs, and the Word report for the client. Nothing is sent to a candidate until the consultant approves it.

More about Mandates

Candidate management for each mandate

Paste, upload or link the job description. Formatix turns it into a checklist of must-haves and nice-to-haves, which the consultant can edit before the search starts.
The longlist comes from LinkedIn (through the consultant's own Chrome, or LinkedIn Recruiter results sent to Formatix), the firm's own CV database in Formatix, and a connected ATS or CRM: JobAdder, Salesforce or HubSpot.
Every candidate is scored against the checklist, with the lines from their profile that prove each requirement. The best ten sit at the top, with the rest of the longlist behind them by tier.

Applicant tracking

A pipeline board for each mandate, with the stages Longlist, Shortlisted, Contacted, Interested, Submitted to client, Client interview, Offer, Placed and Dropped.
Drag a card to move someone on. Dropping a candidate needs a reason, which stays on their record.
Outreach drafts (a LinkedIn note, an InMail and an email) wait for approval. When a candidate replies, the reply appears under Replies; marking it interested or not interested moves them along the pipeline.

Interview management

Interview notes on each candidate, rated 1 to 5 against each must-have and overall, kept with the earlier notes, their author and the date.
An interview pack for each candidate in Word or PDF: fit against the brief, risk flags, screening questions written by AI from the brief (one for each must-have, with what a strong answer sounds like), sourced highlights, package and notice questions, and a page for notes.

The client report

A Word longlist report for the client: the brief, the checklist, the method, and tier tables with ticks and the quotes behind them, plus a CSV export.
The Client tab keeps the report, the job description and the client's contacts together.

The longlist: the top ten, each requirement proved by a line from the profile.

The Formatix pipeline board for a mandate, with columns for Longlist, Shortlisted, Contacted, Interested, Submitted to client and Client interview — The pipeline board, from longlist to client interview.

An interview note in Formatix, with ratings against each must-have, an overall rating and the earlier notes on the candidate — Interview notes, rated against the must-haves.

Two pages of a Formatix interview pack in Word: fit against the brief, screening questions tied to each must-have, sourced highlights and package and notice questions — The interview pack, in Word or PDF.

Screens from a Formatix demo account. Halden & Co, the client and every candidate shown are invented.

Watch the walk-through on YouTube (3:04)

AI Candidate Longlist for Executive Search: Brief to Client Report

See how it works

How to use Mandates

From a brief to a rated longlist, outreach, replies and a client report.

From a mandate to a launched search

Launch a search straight from a mandate, with the brief already filled in.

Launch a search from one brief

The appointment brief, a page for the role, a LinkedIn carousel, a teaser, posts and adverts.

All 21 videos

The documents a retained search is judged on

Most CV formatting software was built for agency recruitment, where the deliverable is a reformatted CV. Executive search is different. By the time a candidate reaches a client in a retained search, they have been interviewed, assessed against a competency framework, often profiled with a psychometric instrument, and referenced. The client does not pay for a tidier CV. It pays for the consultant's view of the candidate, and that view reaches the client as a document.

Those documents take a long time to build. Each one pulls from several sources, the CV, the consultant's notes, rating sheets, a provider's results PDF, and each has a precise house layout the firm has refined over years: the cover page, the order of sections, the way ratings are drawn, the typeface of the headings. Associates and consultants spend evenings copying dates into career tables, redrawing rating bars and fixing page breaks. That is the work Formatix takes on.

What the five document types have in common

The inputs are the same: a CV in any layout and any of 40+ languages, the consultant's notes, the ratings or placements your process produced and, in some cases, the results of a psychometric instrument. The output is always your template, not ours. Formatix builds the template from a document your firm already sends, or from your website branding if you do not have one yet, and keeps its fonts, colours, spacing and layout. Each document can be produced as an editable Word (DOCX) or PowerPoint (PPTX) file so the consultant can make final edits, as an Excel (XLSX) tracker where a table makes more sense, or as a PDF for sending on.

Because every report starts from the same template, a mandate's five finalist reports look as if one hand wrote them, even when three consultants and two associates worked on them.

The consultant owns the assessment

Formatix does not assess candidates, rate competencies, place people on a 9-box grid or interpret psychometric results. It never administers, scores or interprets a psychometric instrument and never produces a Hogan, SHL or Saville report. You upload your notes and the results you hold; Formatix lays them into your report and draws the scores you supply as charts in your house style. Every document can be reviewed and edited before it leaves the firm, and nothing you upload is used to train AI models.

That division of labour matters in executive search, where the firm's reputation rests on the quality of its judgement. A tool that invented an opinion about a CEO candidate would be a liability. A tool that puts your opinion on the page, in your layout, gives you back the evening.

For search firms and for in-house talent teams

Formatix is used by retained executive search firms, and the same approach works for leadership advisory practices, interim management providers and in-house executive talent teams. The succession planning page is written for the CHRO and the head of talent rather than the search consultant, because they are the ones who build those packs. Whichever side of the table you sit on, the documents stay confidential: data is processed in the UK and EU under GDPR, and you can work in the platform, through the API, through the JobAdder integration, or from ChatGPT, Claude and other AI assistants that support connectors.

Samples from a fictional candidate

These pages were produced by Formatix on Formatix-owned demo templates for an invented candidate. Your documents would use your own templates.

First page of a sample executive assessment report for a fictional candidate, with cover details, executive summary and career overview — Assessment report, page 1

Sample shortlist PowerPoint slide comparing three fictional executive candidates side by side — Shortlist deck slide

Pricing in one line

Plans start at £20 a month for 20 credits (£1 per CV) and go down to £0.71 per CV (€0.85, US$0.88) on Enterprise annual. You're billed in your local currency, including euros and US dollars. Every new account gets 10 free credits, with no card, valid for 14 days. In ChatGPT and Claude, Formatix is free for 5 CVs a month. Full details are on the pricing page.

Questions search firms ask

How Formatix compares to other CV formatting tools →

Questions from search firms and talent teams

Is Formatix an executive search CRM or ATS?: Not a full CRM. Formatix produces the documents: assessment reports, candidate profiles, shortlist decks, trackers and talent-review packs, in your own template. For each search, Mandates also keeps the candidates, a pipeline board from longlist to placement, interview notes and the client report. It works alongside your ATS or CRM rather than replacing it: it reads candidates from JobAdder, Salesforce or HubSpot, has an API, and you can also simply upload files or use it from ChatGPT, Claude or other AI assistants that support connectors.
Does Formatix assess candidates or interpret psychometric results?: No. The consultant owns the assessment. Formatix never administers, scores, interprets or generates psychometric assessments. You upload your notes, ratings and the results you hold, and Formatix lays them into your branded report, drawing the scores you supply as charts. In Mandates it checks longlist profiles against the brief's checklist and shows the quote behind every tick, so the consultant can see why someone is on the list; the judgement stays with the consultant.
Can Formatix track candidates through a search, like an applicant tracking system?: Yes, for each mandate. Candidates move on a pipeline board through Longlist, Shortlisted, Contacted, Interested, Submitted to client, Client interview, Offer and Placed, or are dropped with a reason. When a candidate replies to approved outreach, marking the reply interested or not moves them along the pipeline.
Does Formatix help with candidate interviews?: Yes. Consultants keep interview notes on each candidate, rated 1 to 5 against each must-have and overall, and can generate an interview pack in Word or PDF with fit against the brief, risk flags and screening questions written by AI from the brief, one for each must-have. The consultant runs the interview and makes the call.
Where do the candidates on a mandate come from?: From LinkedIn, through the consultant's own Chrome or LinkedIn Recruiter results sent to Formatix, from the firm's own CV database in Formatix, and from a connected JobAdder, Salesforce or HubSpot. Each one is scored against the brief, with the lines from their profile that prove each requirement.
Can we use the report templates we already have?: Yes, that is the usual starting point. Upload a document your firm already sends and Formatix turns it into a template, preserving fonts, colours, spacing and layout. If you have no house template, it can build one from your website branding.
Which formats can we produce?: Word (DOCX), PowerPoint (PPTX), Excel (XLSX) and PDF. Word and PowerPoint outputs stay fully editable so the consultant can make final changes.
How much does it cost?: Plans start at £20 a month for 20 credits (£1 per CV) and go down to £0.71 per CV (€0.85, US$0.88) on Enterprise annual. You're billed in your local currency, including euros and US dollars. Every new account gets 10 free credits, with no card, valid for 14 days. In ChatGPT and Claude, Formatix is free for 5 CVs a month.
Where is candidate and employee data processed?: In the UK and EU, under GDPR. Nothing you upload is used to train AI models.

Bring one document you already send

Start with the report or deck your firm sends clients today. Formatix turns it into a template, and your next finalist report comes out in exactly that layout.

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Browse example templates for these documents in the template library

Hogan, SHL, Saville Wave and DISC are trademarks of their respective owners. Formatix is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.