Full-Cycle Recruiting Guide & Best Practices

Written by

Lisa Gonzalez

· Last updated on

July 16, 2023

Ask any recruiter if hiring the ideal candidate is easy, and they will tell you no. Hiring from start to finish can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, but that’s precisely what full-cycle recruiting is supposed to effectively manage. The full-cycle recruiting process is designed to complete each stage of the hiring process – from the vacancy and sourcing of candidates to job offers and onboarding. 

With Jobspage, you can efficiently publish open jobs, create a careers page for your company, track and manage the candidates throughout your hiring process and recruit the perfect candidate to fill the job position.

This article will discuss the full-cycle recruiting process, its importance, and how it works. 

What is Full-Cycle Recruiting?

Full-cycle recruiting is a comprehensive recruitment process covering the entire recruiting spectrum. It encompasses all stages of the recruitment process, from sourcing to onboarding and everything in between. 

This type of recruitment process allows employers to effectively manage their talent pipeline, track applicants, and create a more efficient system for hiring. Full-cycle recruiting includes job postings, candidate screening, interviewing, and background.

Depending on your company’s size, the person in charge of the full-cycle recruiting may differ. In smaller companies, this will often be the HR manager who will act as a full cycle recruiter at the same time, while in larger organizations, they may have an HR department consisting of members that specialize in a specific stage of the recruiting process. 

The responsibilities of a full-cycle recruiter begin with sending assessments to applicants and end with onboarding candidates. To make the hiring process easier, check out the top HR software for startups!

If you’re looking for the best free applicant tracking system that can streamline your full-cycle recruitment processes, Jobspage is the solution for your business. We’re an applicant-tracking software that allows businesses to easily create careers pages, publish open jobs, manage applicants, and track candidates to ensure you find the best people to hire.Take a look at our pricing to find a plan that works for your business today!  

How can Full-Cycle Recruiting Benefit your Company?

A well-structured full-cycle recruitment process offers many potential benefits for any organization. It helps build better relationships with the hiring staff and the candidates while providing a good experience for everyone involved in the hiring process. 

Here are three ways in which full-cycle recruitment can benefit your company:

  • Command and responsibility: The hiring process consists of different steps applicants must go through to prove their capabilities and skills. Following a full-cycle recruitment process allows a smoother and more efficient workflow because only one person or department is in charge of the entire recruitment process. Only one person handles all job postings, interviews, selection processes, and onboarding activities throughout the hiring process. 
  • Enhanced talent pool: Stronger candidate pools are essential to successful full-cycle recruiting. Since the recruiters take charge of the whole hiring process with a clear idea of what skills and personality the ideal candidate should have, the selection process is more efficient, and only the stronger candidates can make it to the next step. According to Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, “People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”
  • Seamless recruitment journey: Candidates are typically the most negatively impacted by a confusing and unorganized hiring process, which often leads to a poor candidate experience – not to mention that a confusing process paints a poor picture of your company. Potential candidates will feel more comfortable with a single point of contact throughout the hiring process, making it easier to reach out for any questions or concerns about the role. Using automation for onboarding tasks results in a 16% improvement in the retention rate for new employees.

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Six Steps To Create A Full-Cycle Recruiting Strategy

The full-cycle recruiting process consists of six steps, each vital in ensuring the process is as smooth and successful as possible. In this section, let’s dive deeper into the six stages of full-cycle recruiting.

1. Assess and establish the hiring criteria

The first step of the process is identifying the hiring requirements to attract suitable applicants to your job posting. To do this, managers and recruiters should work together to come up with a job requisition guide to determine what an applicant needs to fill the vacant role effectively, such as skills, relevant work experience, and education. 

2. Talent Acquisition

Once the job description is complete, the recruiter must source candidates and encourage them to apply. To find the best candidates, 60% of people use job boards and social media platforms like LinkedIn, or visit job fairs for their open positions. According to SHRM, 84% of companies use social media in recruiting.

Building your talent pool for a specific job position can be time-consuming if not streamlined. Recruiters must carefully review resumes and check each candidate individually to ensure they meet all qualifications and even provide assessments to test their knowledge and skills. 

With Jobpage’s applicant tracking system, you can easily speed up the process and ensure that each candidate is fairly reviewed. With our ATS, you can streamline your hiring process, moving applicants through each stage of the hiring process easily, while allowing you to collaborate with your team to ensure that only the best candidates are selected.

3. Candidate Evaluation

To hire the best candidate, you need to screen each applicant – move the potential candidates to the next step, and let go of those who don’t meet the required qualifications. Usually, this step can already be determined when viewing each candidate’s resume. 

But the more common way is conducting interviews through phone and video chats, as it helps you know about the candidate before scheduling an in-person DEI interview. If you’re wondering why it’s important to hire the right candidate, think of this quote from Bill Gates, “The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people.”

The candidate evaluation process filters out low-quality candidates, saving you time and reducing the number of applicants to a smaller, more robust competition.

4. Choose the ideal candidate

Once you are confident that you have collected a qualified pool of applicants, the next step is narrowing down the list to get you closer to hiring the perfect candidate. 

In this step, you’ll evaluate candidates based on their skills, personality, and how they fit into your company culture. To filter the candidates, recruiters can perform various methods such as interviews, personality assessments, and cross-functional interviews. 

Once you’ve finished your initial interviews and assessments, you can reach out to the most qualified candidate with a job offer. This isn’t obligatory though! If you still haven’t found the right person, you’ll need to reevaluate your candidate pool and try again.

5. Employment 

Once the recruiter and manager have chosen a candidate to fill a vacant role through interviews and assessments, there’s only one thing left to do: reference checks. Doing a background check can help confirm your perception of the candidate and gather information from the perspectives of the candidate’s previous employers. 

While the full-cycle recruiter takes charge of each process step, the hiring manager still has the final decision on whether or not to hire the candidate. 

6. Welcome to the team!

Once the candidate accepts the job offer, the full-cycle recruiting process ensures that the new hire settles nicely into the company. The recruiter’s task may include: 

  • Scheduling a call with the new hire to discuss the company’s rules & regulations
  • Scheduling a call between the new hire and the manager for onboarding
  • Updating the IT team to send work equipment to the new hire
  • Letting the rest of the team know about the new hire 

That wraps up the full-cycle recruiting process! Be sure to follow the six steps carefully, and don’t overlook a stage, as it can hurt your company’s chances of hiring top talent quickly. 

Hire The Right Candidate Today!

Hiring candidates to fill a particular position takes time and effort for business organizations. With a full-cycle recruiting process, attracting potential candidates and providing everyone with a seamless and hassle-free hiring experience has never been more effortless. Follow the steps above to implement a full-cycle recruiting process successfully.

To help you track and organize your candidates and each application process, create an account with Jobspage in just a few minutes!

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