Comparison
Delibity vs Google Forms and Sheets for club recruitment
Both are free. One is a set of general tools you assemble each season; the other was built for selective club recruitment. Here is when each one makes sense.
Paul PassarelliFounder of Delibity. Former VP of Recruitment, Phi Gamma Nu (Cornell).
On this page
Google Forms and Sheets
Best for a small or open club with one application and no interviews, run by an officer who knows Sheets well.
Delibity
Best for a selective club or professional fraternity running applications, coffee chats, interviews and deliberations.
Delibity wrote this page, and it compares Delibity with Google's tools. We checked each product's own site on 2026-11-06, and Google's limits come from Google's own help pages.
How most clubs run recruitment on Google today
Most clubs that run recruitment on Google use one form per stage, a master spreadsheet, a shared Drive folder and a slide deck for deliberations. It works, and it costs nothing, which is why so many clubs start there.
The typical stack
A typical season on Google looks like this:
- an application form, with a sheet of responses
- a coffee chat request form, and a second form for members' chat notes
- a sign-in form for each event
- a scoring form or sheet for each interview room
- a master sheet where an officer copies everything together
- a slide deck, one slide per candidate, built the night before delibs
- a poll or a show of hands for the vote
What officers say about it
The Cornell Daily Sun's 2026 profile of Delibity described club volunteers "piecing together dozens of Google Forms and Google Sheets." A former club president said they "had to manage and compile several different forms, spreadsheets and presentations." I was one of those officers: I ran recruitment as VP of Recruitment for Phi Gamma Nu at Cornell before building Delibity.
Where Google Forms and Sheets work well
Google Forms and Sheets are a good choice when the season is simple. They are free, everyone already knows them, and you can change anything in a minute.
They are enough when:
- your club takes most people who apply, or has no interviews
- there is one application round and a short decision
- one officer will build the sheets and keep them tidy
- you don't need to hand the system to a new board next year
Forms also stores every answer in a Sheet automatically, and a sheet can hold up to 20 million cells, so you won't run out of room. If this describes your club, keep using them. The Google Forms club application template shows how to set one up well.
Where they break down, stage by stage
Google's tools break down when the season has several stages, because each stage lives in its own file and nothing links a candidate's records together. Here is where it shows.
Applications
A file upload question in Google Forms requires respondents to sign in to a Google account, and the files go to the form owner's Drive. That means a candidate without a Google account can't upload a résumé, and the files live in one officer's personal Drive.
In Delibity, candidates apply without signing in, including a PDF résumé and a headshot, and answers are saved on their phone if they leave halfway.
Coffee chats
On Google, coffee chats are a request form, pairing done by hand in a sheet, an email to each pair, and a second form for members' notes. Finding which chats have no notes means comparing two sheets.
In Delibity, requests, pairing and evaluations are linked. Pairing emails go out for you, and each member sees the chats they still owe.
Interviews
On Google, each interview room usually gets its own scoring form or sheet. Weights per criterion have to be built as formulas, and anyone with edit access can change a score or delete a column.
In Delibity, a session has rooms, weighted subscores or pass/fail items, and a rubric description for each. Interviewers score live, and each score is tied to the interviewer and the candidate.
Deliberations and the vote
On Google, someone copies every candidate's application, chat notes, attendance and interview scores into a slide deck before delibs. The vote happens by show of hands or a separate poll.
In Delibity, every candidate already has one transcript with all of it. The chair launches one candidate at a time, members vote admit, deny or abstain on their phones, and the room sees totals, not names.
Jordan Lee
Application82
Coffee chats2 completed
Events3 attended
Behavioral86
Technical79
Group case88
Interview overall84
How Delibity does this
One page per candidate
Each candidate's transcript holds their application, coffee chats, events attended and interview scores by room, so the room compares candidates on the same facts.
Members fill it in as the season runs. There's nothing to merge by hand before delibs.
See the whole seasonSide by side
The two options cost the same. The difference is the time each stage takes and what the club keeps at the end of the season.
| Google Forms and Sheets | Delibity | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free with a Google account | Free for every student organization |
| Setup | Minutes per form; the joins are built by hand | About two minutes to request an account; clubs are reviewed by hand, usually the same day |
| Application | ✓ Custom questions; file upload requires a Google sign-in | ✓ Custom questions, branching, résumé and headshot upload without a sign-in |
| Coffee chats | A request form plus pairing by hand | ✓ Requests, pairing, pairing emails and evaluations |
| Events | A sign-in form per event | ✓ QR check-in added to the candidate's record |
| Interviews | A scoring form or sheet per room | ✓ Rooms, weighted subscores, live scoring |
| Record per candidate | Copied into slides by hand | ✓ One transcript per candidate |
| Voting | A poll or show of hands | ✓ Live vote per candidate with recusal; totals only |
| Access | Share settings on each file | ✓ Admin and interviewer roles; inactive members lose access right away |
| Next season | Copy the files and rebuild | ✓ Copy last season's sessions and application |
Sources: Google Docs Editors Help and Google Drive Help pages, and Delibity's own site, listed below.
Access and privacy: who can see what
Access is the difference officers notice last and care about most. A Google recruiting season usually ends with dozens of files shared with dozens of members, some of whom have graduated.
On Google, each form, sheet and folder has its own share settings. Removing a member means finding every file they could open. In Delibity, only the club's active members see candidate data, admins run the season, and interviewers see what they need to score. Marking someone inactive removes their access everywhere at once. The guide to who should see applicant data covers what to check.
Without Delibity, I would have spent hours every week piecing together forms, spreadsheets, and messages. Everything I needed was in one place.
Switching without losing this season's data
You can switch in the middle of a season without losing anything you've collected. Keep your Google Forms open until the new application is tested, then move one stage at a time.
Bring in applications you already collected
Applications you collected in Google Forms can be uploaded into Delibity, so they sit next to the ones that come in through Delibity. You paste each column from the response sheet. It isn't a live connection to your form, so do it once, after your form closes.
Add your members
Paste your member list to add everyone at once. Every active member gets an interviewer login automatically, so there's nothing to hand out.
A week-one switching checklist
Week one on Delibity
- Request your club's account and add your e-board as admins
- Paste your member list
- Rebuild your application, and have two members test it on their phones
- Upload any applications you already collected
- Open the coffee chat request form
- Set up your interview session: rooms, weights and rubric text
- Close the old Google Forms so candidates use one place
For more options beyond these two, see club recruitment software for student organizations. For the whole season, see how to run club recruitment.
Questions chairs ask
Is Delibity really free?
Yes. Every feature is free for every student organization, with no seat limits and no card. Delibity makes money from separate products for companies, and it doesn't sell candidate data or use it for anything else.
Can we keep using our Google Form?
Yes, for any stage you like. You can keep a Google Form for one stage while the rest of the season runs on Delibity. Applications you collect in Google Forms can be uploaded into Delibity later by pasting the response columns, so they sit next to the rest of each candidate's record.
Do candidates need a Google account to apply?
On Google Forms, only if the form has a file upload question: Google requires respondents to sign in to upload files. On Delibity, candidates apply without signing in, including uploading a résumé.
What happens to our data when the e-board changes?
On Google, the files stay with whoever owns them, often an officer who is graduating. On Delibity, applications, rubrics and past candidates stay in the club's account. The new board is added as admins and graduating members are marked inactive.
Is Google Sheets enough for a small club?
Yes. A small or open club with one application and no interviews doesn't need more than Google Forms and Sheets. A dedicated tool starts to save time when the season has several stages and members scoring candidates.
Sources
- Google Docs Editors Help: Add a file upload question: respondents must sign in; files go to the owner's Drive (checked 2026-11-06) support.google.com
- Google Docs Editors Help: Choose where to save form responses: responses saved to a Google Sheets table (checked 2026-11-06) support.google.com
- Google Drive Help: Files you can store in Google Drive: up to 20 million cells per spreadsheet (checked 2026-11-06) support.google.com
- Simplifying Club Deliberations: Paul Passarelli '27 Creates Delibity Platform, The Cornell Daily Sun, Jan. 12, 2026 (checked 2026-11-06) cornellsun.com
- Delibity: pricing, FAQ on setup, data access and handover (checked 2026-11-06) delibity.com