Full Life Cycle Recruiting for Beginners

Are you in charge of the entire recruiting operation at your company? Perhaps you handle one slice of the process.

Either way, it’s important to understand full life cycle recruiting.

What Is Full Life Cycle Recruiting?

Full life cycle recruiting goes by many names; 360 recruitment, full circle recruiting, end-to-end recruiting, and full cycle staffing.

All of these terms describe the entire recruiting process from job requisition to onboarding.

Why Is It Important To Understand Full Life Cycle Recruiting?

Recruiting is more effective when the hiring team takes a holistic approach. Regardless of which step you are in charge of, you need to understand the entire process so you know where your task fits.

The steps in the hiring process are interdependent. They build on each other sequentially.

If you don’t understand the hiring manager’s needs, the candidate persona won’t be right. If you mess up the candidate persona, your job description will be off-target. If your job description is off-target, your applicant pool won’t contain suitable candidates. And so on…

Any process with a lot of moving parts can get off track. Mistakes compound as you advance through the order of operations.

All Companies Need A Full Life Cycle Recruitment Approach

A common misconception among small business owners is the idea that business management theory only applies to large companies.

Many small business owners are busy just trying to keep the lights on.

This begs the question, “How do small businesses become big businesses?”

One predictor of growth is whether the business is able to establish and follow best practices – including full life cycle recruitment. One could argue that it’s the most important process because the people you hire create all the other processes!

How Does Full Life Cycle Recruitment Help My Business?

What’s the ultimate goal of full life cycle recruitment?

  • To fill each position with a quality employee in a timely manner
  • A workforce that is productive, engaged, and loyal
  • A team that executes the business strategy
  • Employees that create ongoing value

How Do I Design A Full Life Cycle Recruitment Process?

If you are the hiring manager at a new company, you might need to create and document the recruiting process from scratch.

Here are the ten steps of the process:

  1. Hiring Manager Submits Job Requisition
  2. Create The Candidate Persona
  3. Create The Job Description
  4. Create The Pre-screening Questionnaire
  5. Source Job Applicants
  6. Screen And Filter Candidates
  7. Conduct Interviews
  8. Background And Reference Checks
  9. Extend The Job Offer
  10. Onboarding

Let’s break each step down.

1. Hiring Manager Submits Job Requisition

  • Verify the requisition policy is followed
  • Identify the job requirements

2. Create The Candidate Persona

  • Understand and interpret the hiring manager’s needs
  • Verify EEOC compliance (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

3. Create The Job Description

  • Job location
  • Job title
  • List of job responsibilities
  • List of candidate requirements (hard and soft skills)
  • List of desired candidate credentials
  • Any special conditions (such as proximity to workplace)
  • Statement about company and benefits
  • EEOC statement

4. Prepare The Prescreening Questionnaire

  • Identify skills criteria from the job description
  • Identify other special conditions
  • Write a question for each criterion using multiple choice or yes/no structure
  • Include knockout questions to eliminate unqualified candidates
  • Created structured interview questions
  • Verify EEOC compliance

5. Source Job Applicants

  • Write job posting using job description
  • Post to job boards
  • Post to company careers page
  • Post to social media sites
  • Source passive candidates on LinkedIn, niche sites
  • Seek employee referrals

6. Screen And Filter Candidates

  • Collect and store applications in candidate database
  • Administer screening questionnaire during application process
  • Filter out candidates who don’t meet job criteria (skills and special conditions)
  • Read resumes and applications for candidates not filtered out
  • Isolate pool of top candidates to advance to interview stage

7. Interviews

  • Schedule interviews
  • Conduct interviews
  • Share feedback with hiring team
  • Select top candidate

8. Confirm Your Selection

  • Perform background check
  • Perform reference check

9. Job Offer

  • Extend the job offer to the chosen candidate
  • If candidate accepts, transition to onboarding
  • If candidate declines, repeat steps 8 and 9 with second choice

10. Onboarding

  • Transition new hire to onboarding process
  • Use structured onboarding to help employee succeed in their job role

Applicant Tracking Systems For Full Life Cycle Recruitment

From the job requisition to onboarding, an applicant tracking system (ATS) brilliantly manages each step in full life cycle recruiting. An ATS improves efficiency, lowers hiring expenses, and makes it easy for you to apply best practices.

Collect and organize hundreds of applications for multiple job openings simultaneously. As you move applicants through the process, each hiring stage triggers actions. For example, when you advance a candidate to ‘Schedule Interview,’ the system emails a link to a scheduling calendar. ATSs allow your hiring team to share notes and feedback in a centralized location. Plus, they create a far better applicant experience.

If you want to implement full life cycle recruiting, choose a good applicant tracking system to ensure your success.

Author Bio: Liz Strikwerda is a Workforce Management Journalist. She has written over 200 articles that explain how Human Resources systems help employers manage their human capital. On the ApplicantStack blog, she focuses on how ApplicantStack helps businesses thrive in today’s competitive labor market. Connect with Liz on LinkedIn.