Track hours by what they were spent on, not whether someone was present. A simple timer by order or client tells you what each order really costs, which clients eat the desk, and who is overbooked next week. Tracking hours to prove people were at their desks tells you none of that, and it produces the recruiter wiggling the mouse to keep the status light green. Activity: 100 percent. Placements: zero.
The mouse wiggler
Every desk with presence tracking has one. The status light goes amber after three minutes idle, so a recruiter on a long screening call nudges the mouse every two. At the end of the week the report says 98 percent active. The same recruiter sent four submittals, two came back, and one placement did not show.
Nobody lied. The tool measured what it was pointed at, and it was pointed at the wrong thing.
What hours tracking is actually for
Three questions, none of them "was she there?"
1. What does an order really cost? Intake, sourcing, screening, submittal, confirmation. Twelve hours on a normal order, twenty on one that bounced. You cannot price or improve what you have not counted.
2. Which clients eat the desk? One account takes forty hours a month and sends two orders. Another takes ten and sends six. Hours by client show you which is which.
3. Who is overbooked next week? Tentative hours by person against the hours in the week. Fifteen minutes of arithmetic instead of a weekend of overtime.
How to do it without a fight
- A timer per task or order. Start it when you start the order, stop it when you stop. No screenshots, no idle detection.
- Group by order, client and goal. The totals are what matter, not the minutes.
- Weekly, not daily, review. Look at the shape of the week: where the hours went, which orders ran long and why.
- Tell people what it is for. Pricing, capacity and spotting rework. Not attendance.
Recruiters track hours happily when the hours are used to lighten their desk and price their work. They fight it when it is used to check they were sitting down.
Where M-Tracker fits
M-Tracker has a task timer and groups time by task, project and goal, with Google Calendar meeting time on its own line. A capacity view shows tentative hours by person or role, and a team lead gets a weekly note when someone is overbooked this week or next. Past time from Toggl or Harvest can be imported. There are no screenshots, no keystroke logging and no activity scores; the hours describe the work, not the chair.
Try M-Tracker free14-day trial. No credit card. No employee surveillance.
Questions people ask
Should salaried recruiters track hours at all?
By order and client, yes, lightly. It is how you learn what an order costs. By presence, no.
What about billing clients for recruiter time?
Some firms do, for retained search. Hours by client make the invoice honest.
How do I stop the mouse wiggling?
Stop measuring idle time. Measure placements that stick, and track hours only by order. The wiggling stops the same day.
Work you can trust, without redoing it.
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