Recruitment tender response worksheet
Turn a recruitment tender into a response matrix with evidence, owners, limits and deadlines, then check the submission against the buyer’s instructions.
Read the instructions and the scoring document together. A well-written paragraph can earn little if it answers half the question or relies on an attachment the buyer says it will disregard. Build a response matrix before assigning any writing.
Download the blank tender response matrix (.txt).
Decide whether to bid
List the conditions the buyer describes as mandatory, the geographical coverage, expected volumes, contract period and submission deadline with its time zone. Confirm who can approve pricing and sign declarations. Log any conflict between the documents and send a clarification through the route the buyer specifies, before its deadline.
Merebridge Recruitment, our fictional agency, receives a brief seeking weekend cover for two depots. It has a rota for one. Before committing a consultant to the bid, the operations lead checks whether the second depot can be covered by the same team and prices travel and out-of-hours time. If it cannot meet a mandatory requirement, the bid lead needs that answer while there is still time to decide.
Split a compound question into evidence
Imagine a buyer asking how you will fill a vacancy at short notice and report a missed fill. Its fictional instructions allow 300 words for the whole answer and give the question a 15% weighting. Keep a single combined limit when you break the question down.
| Part of the question | Owner and evidence | What the answer needs |
|---|---|---|
| Receive an urgent request | Duty consultant, sample call log | Trigger, acknowledgement and person responsible |
| Find available staff | Resourcing lead, approved on-call rota | Who calls whom, how availability and role suitability are checked |
| Report a missed fill | Account manager, redacted service report | When the buyer hears, escalation route and what appears in the report |
Allocate the 300 words deliberately, for example 80, 120 and 100 across the three parts. A reviewer should be able to underline where each part is answered. If using a performance figure, check its dates, numerator, denominator and permission to disclose. If you only have a proposed process, describe who will run it and when.
Review and submit
Give a colleague the buyer's wording, marking scheme and draft. Ask them to score each section using only the permitted material. Compare their comments with the evidence column. Remove identifying candidate details from examples and check the final file, including any comments or tracked changes.
Record clarification updates, final filenames, required format, signatory and portal access. Allow time for large uploads. Check that the portal shows the submission as received, save the receipt and keep the exact version sent. When feedback arrives, attach it to its question reference so the next bid team can see what the buyer marked.