Shortlist decks

    Longlist and shortlist decks in PowerPoint, built from the candidates' CVs, in your own deck design

    In most retained searches the shortlist reaches the client as a deck, presented at the progress meeting and forwarded around the leadership team afterwards. Formatix builds that deck from the candidates' CVs and your notes, one slide per candidate in your own PowerPoint design, with an Excel tracker from the same batch so the deck and the tracker always agree.

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    The deck the night before the progress meeting

    A shortlist deck looks simple: a title slide, a slide per candidate, a comparison slide and a next-steps slide. Building one is not. Each candidate slide needs the current role, a career summary, the key achievements against the brief and your commentary, trimmed to fit placeholders that were designed for a tidy candidate, not a real one with eleven roles.

    Then the search moves. Two candidates withdraw, three are added from the longlist, and the client wants the deck again next week with the new names and the updated comments. The Excel tracker that the researcher maintains drifts away from the deck, and someone spends the morning of the meeting reconciling the two.

    Longlists are worse: thirty or forty candidates, each needing a line or a slide, usually assembled by a researcher copying from LinkedIn and CVs into a template last updated by someone who has since left.

    What goes in

    • The candidates' CVs

      PDF or Word, in any layout and any of 40+ languages, up to 20 files in one batch.

    • Your notes on each candidate

      Commentary, motivation, status and anything else you show the client. Your wording is kept.

    • The brief, for comparison slides

      The criteria from the brief that your comparison slide sets candidates against, if your deck has one.

    • Your deck and tracker templates

      The PowerPoint deck and Excel tracker you already use, converted once into Formatix templates.

    What comes out

    • The shortlist deck (PPTX)

      One slide per candidate in your slide design, fully editable in PowerPoint.

    • Comparison slides

      Candidates side by side against the criteria your template defines, using the information from their CVs and your notes.

    • An Excel tracker (XLSX)

      One row per candidate from the same batch, so the tracker matches the deck.

    • A PDF for forwarding

      The deck as a PDF for clients who forward it around the leadership team.

    A sample shortlist slide

    This slide was produced for a fictional candidate on a Formatix-owned demo deck. It shows the kind of candidate slide Formatix fills from a CV and consultant notes. Your deck would keep your own slide masters and design.

    Sample shortlist PowerPoint slide comparing three fictional executive candidates side by side, with current role, career summary and consultant commentary
    Candidate slide from a shortlist deck

    How it works

    1. 1

      Upload your deck

      Give Formatix the shortlist deck you already present, with candidate details removed or replaced. It becomes a template that keeps your slide masters, fonts, colours and placeholder positions. Do the same with your Excel tracker.

    2. 2

      Drop the shortlist

      Upload the candidates' CVs and your notes, up to 20 files per batch.

    3. 3

      Get the deck and the tracker

      Formatix fills a slide per candidate and a row per candidate from the same extraction.

    4. 4

      Edit, present, repeat

      Refine the slides in PowerPoint. When the shortlist changes, run the new candidates through the same template rather than rebuilding the deck.

    What stays exactly as your brand

    • Slide design

      Your masters, layouts, colours and fonts. The deck looks like your deck because it is your deck.

    • Placeholder positions

      Photos, logos, text boxes and tables stay where your designer put them.

    • Tracker columns

      Your Excel column order, headings and formatting, exactly as you use them.

    • Fixed slides

      Title, methodology and next-steps slides in your template stay as they are.

    Who it is for

    • Retained search consultants

      Consultants presenting shortlists at progress meetings who want the deck done before the meeting prep, not instead of it.

    • Researchers and associates

      The people who currently build longlists and trackers by hand, and who would rather be researching.

    • In-house executive recruiting teams

      Teams presenting candidate slates to hiring executives in the company's own deck design.

    • Interim and board practices

      Practices that present several candidates side by side and need the comparison to be consistent.

    Compared with doing it by hand, or with a CV formatter

    Shortlist decks are usually built by hand in PowerPoint. CV formatters such as Allsorter, HireAra and CV-Transformer reformat each CV into a house template; they stop at the CV, and a shortlist is a set of candidates, not a single document.

    One slide per candidate

    Formatix:
    Filled from the CV and your notes in your deck design
    By hand:
    Copied and trimmed by hand
    CV-only formatters:
    Not produced: output is a CV per candidate

    Excel tracker

    Formatix:
    From the same batch, so it matches the deck
    By hand:
    Maintained separately
    CV-only formatters:
    Not produced

    Updating the shortlist

    Formatix:
    Run new candidates through the same template
    By hand:
    Rebuild slides
    CV-only formatters:
    Reformat new CVs, then rebuild slides

    Your slide masters

    Formatix:
    Kept
    By hand:
    Kept
    CV-only formatters:
    Not applicable

    Output formats

    Formatix:
    PowerPoint, Excel, Word and PDF
    By hand:
    Whatever you build
    CV-only formatters:
    Mostly Word or PDF

    Cost

    Formatix:
    From £20 a month; 10 free credits to start
    By hand:
    Consultant and researcher time
    CV-only formatters:
    Often quote-only

    Detailed comparisons: Allsorter, HireAra, CV-Transformer.

    Pricing in one line

    Plans start at £20 a month for 20 credits, and every new account gets 10 free credits with no card and no expiry. Full details are on the pricing page.

    Questions people ask

    Does Formatix keep our PowerPoint slide masters?
    Yes. The template is made from your own deck, so the masters, layouts, fonts, colours and placeholder positions are preserved. The output is a normal PPTX you can edit.
    How many candidates can go into one deck?
    You can upload up to 20 files in one batch. For a longer longlist, run it in several batches.
    Can it produce a comparison slide?
    Yes, if your deck has one. The template defines the criteria, and the slide is filled from the candidates' CVs and your notes. Check it before presenting: the comparison is only as good as the material behind it.
    Can we get an Excel tracker as well?
    Yes. Convert your tracker into a template once and each batch can fill it with one row per candidate.
    What happens when the shortlist changes?
    Run the new candidates through the same template and add their slides to the deck. Your earlier slides, including any edits you made, are untouched.
    Can candidates' CVs be in different languages?
    Yes. Formatix works in 40+ languages, so an international shortlist can go into a single English deck.
    Does it connect to our ATS?
    Formatix has a JobAdder integration and an API. Otherwise you can upload CVs directly, or work from ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity through the Formatix MCP server.

    Give the progress meeting your attention, not the deck

    Upload the shortlist deck you already present and run your current shortlist through it. Ten free credits, no card.

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    Other executive search documents

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