Applications Pipeline

The applications pipeline is one vacancy's funnel on a single page: every candidate in the running, the stage each has reached, the date he reached it, and why the ones who are out are out. It is the screen a hiring manager asks for when he wants to know why a vacancy is eight weeks old.

Where

Recruitment & Onboarding › Applications Pipeline

Who uses it

The recruiter, updated as candidates move

When

From the first applicant until the vacancy is filled

Needs first

Recruitment Requisition and Recruitment Applicant

What it is for

Everything else in this module answers a question about one candidate. The screening says what was thought of him, the interview evaluation says how he scored, the offer says what he was offered. None of them answers the hiring manager's question, which is about the vacancy rather than the candidate: how many people have we seen, how many are left, and what is holding this up.

That is what this screen is. One record per vacancy, keyed on the Recruitment Requisition the vacancy came from, with one line per candidate. The line carries the stage, the date of that stage, a score if there is one, the date of the next step, and, for anybody rejected, the reason. Reading down the lines tells the whole story of the vacancy in one go.

The counts across the top of the record are worked out from the lines, never typed. Applicants is simply how many lines there are. In the current build the other four, Shortlisted, Interviewed, Offered and Hired, stay at zero whatever the lines say, and the status is not closed for you when the last seat is filled. Treat the counts as a summary that is only partly wired up, and read the lines, which are always right.

A candidate can appear on the pipeline once. Put him on twice and the save is refused, which is the right behaviour: a funnel that counts the same man twice is worse than no funnel.

Every field, in plain words

Requisition

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Transaction	The reference of this pipeline record	PIPE-2026-014	Required. Must be unique. One pipeline per vacancy.
Transaction Date	The day the pipeline was opened	20 Jan 2026	Required.
Recruitment Request	The requisition this vacancy came from	Pick it from the list, for example REQ-2026-014	Required. This is what ties the funnel to a vacancy.
Position	The position being filled	Pick it from the list, for example Production Supervisor
Position Name	The position in words	Fills itself from the Position. Leave it.
Department	The department the vacancy is in	Pick it from the list, for example Weaving
Number of Vacancies	How many seats there are to fill	3	A pipeline for a vacancy with no seats is refused, so this has to be at least 1. Take the number from the requisition's headcount.

Where It Stands

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Applicants	How many candidates are on the pipeline	Fills itself by counting the lines. Leave it.
Shortlisted	How many have been shortlisted	Fills itself. Leave it.	Stays at zero in the current build. Count the lines at the Shortlisted stage instead.
Interviewed	How many have been interviewed	Fills itself. Leave it.	Stays at zero in the current build.
Offered	How many have been offered the job	Fills itself. Leave it.	Stays at zero in the current build.
Hired	How many have been hired	Fills itself. Leave it.	Stays at zero in the current build.
Status	Where the vacancy itself stands	Pick it from the list, see below	Set it by hand as the vacancy moves. It is not closed for you when the seats are filled.
Remarks	Anything the hiring manager should know	Both shortlisted candidates withdrew after the salary was discussed. Reopening with a revised band.	This is the field that answers the eight week question. Use it.

Status takes one of seven values:

• OPEN Open. The vacancy is live and nothing much has happened yet.
• SOURCING Sourcing. Candidates are being found.
• INTERVIEW Interviewing. Candidates are being seen.
• OFFER At Offer. An offer is out with somebody.
• FILLED Filled. Every seat has somebody in it. Set this yourself when the last candidate is hired.
• HOLD On Hold. The client has paused the hire, usually for budget.
• CANC Cancelled. The vacancy has been abandoned.

Applicants

One line per candidate in the running.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Applicant	The candidate	Pick it from the list, for example APP-2026-0147	Required. Comes from Recruitment Applicant. A candidate can only appear once on a pipeline.
Applicant Name	The candidate's name	Fills itself from the Applicant. Leave it.
Stage	How far he has got	Pick it from the list, see below	Required.
Stage Date	The day he reached that stage	27 Jan 2026	Required. It cannot be in the future, and the save is refused if it is.
Score	A number for how he did, where there is one	78	Free. Use the percentage from his Interview Evaluation if he has one, or the questionnaire score from his application.
Next Step Date	When something next happens to him	3 Feb 2026	The most useful column on the screen. A line with a stage weeks old and no next step date is the candidate everybody has forgotten.
Rejection Reason	Why he is out	Pick it from the list, see below	Fill it on every rejected line. The save does not currently refuse a rejected line with no reason, but a funnel of rejections with no reasons tells the hiring manager nothing.
Remarks	Anything else about this candidate	Will not move to Faisalabad.

Stage takes one of nine values:

• APPLIED Applied. He is in, nothing has been done yet.
• SCREEN Screening. His file is being read.
• SHORTLIST Shortlisted. He is worth interviewing.
• TEST Test. He is sitting a trade test or a written test.
• INTERVIEW Interview. He has been or is being interviewed.
• OFFER Offer. An offer is out with him.
• HIRED Hired. He has accepted and joined.
• REJECTED Rejected. He is out. Give a reason.
• WDRAWN Withdrawn. He pulled out himself. Use DECLINED or another reason to say why, if you know.

Rejection Reason takes one of seven values:

• SKILL Skills Do Not Match. He cannot do the job.
• EXP Insufficient Experience. He could, in a few years.
• SALARY Salary Expectation. He wants more than the band allows. This is the reason that, repeated three times, gets the band revised.
• NOSHOW Did Not Attend. He did not turn up to the interview.
• DECLINED Candidate Declined. He said no, or withdrew.
• BETTER Better Candidate Selected. Nothing against him.
• OTHR Other. Say what in Remarks, or the reason is no reason.

How to configure it

1. Make sure the Recruitment Requisition exists and the candidates are on Recruitment Applicant. Neither can be created from here.
2. Open Applications Pipeline, give it a reference, and pick the Recruitment Request. Fill in the position, the department and the number of vacancies from the requisition.
3. Add one line per candidate in the running, with his stage and the date he reached it. A pipeline with no candidates is refused, so add at least one.
4. Put a Next Step Date on every line that is still live. This is what stops candidates going quiet.
5. Set the Status to where the vacancy actually is, and write the Remarks for the hiring manager.
6. Save. Come back to it whenever a candidate moves, which in practice means two or three times a week while the vacancy is live.

Scenarios

"Why has the Production Supervisor vacancy been open eight weeks?"

Open the pipeline and read down the Stage, Stage Date and Rejection Reason columns. Four rejected for insufficient experience in week two, two shortlisted in week four, both rejected on salary expectation in week six, nobody since. That is an answer, and it is an answer about the salary band rather than about the recruiter. Write it in Remarks so the hiring manager does not have to work it out twice.

"Three interviewers saw the same man and we need to see their scores together"

Their scores live on Interview Evaluation, one record per round, each with its own panel and its own percentage. Put the candidate's overall percentage in the Score column here so the pipeline shows one number per candidate, and go to the evaluations when somebody wants to know who said what.

"We offered it to somebody and he turned us down, reopen the vacancy"

Change his line's Stage to Rejected with the reason DECLINED, or SALARY if that was the real reason, and say so in Remarks. Set the Status back to SOURCING. Then push the Application Deadline and Close Date out on the vacancy on Recruitment Project so it is advertised again, and mark the declined Offer as declined with its own reason. The pipeline keeps the man on it, which is what you want: the next hiring manager can see that this vacancy has already lost a candidate on pay.

"Two of the three seats are filled"

Mark the two hired candidates' lines Hired and leave the Status at SOURCING or INTERVIEW for the third seat. The Hired count does not fill itself in the current build and the status is not closed for you, so set the Status to FILLED yourself when the last seat has somebody in it.

What it is connected to

• Recruitment Requisition is what the pipeline is keyed on, and supplies the headcount.
• Recruitment Applicant supplies the candidates on the lines.
• Interview Evaluation is where the scores you copy into the Score column come from.
• Offer is the next step for a candidate at the Offer stage.
• Career Application is the candidate's own view of the same journey, and is what e-mails him. Moving a line here does not e-mail anybody.

If something looks wrong

• "It will not let me save, it says an applicant is on the pipeline twice" - he is on two lines. One line per candidate.
• "It will not let me save a stage date" - the date is in the future. A stage is something that has happened.
• "It will not let me save, it says the requisition has no vacancies" - Number of Vacancies is zero. Put the real headcount in.
• "The Shortlisted and Interviewed counts are always zero" - they do not fill in the current build. Count the lines at each stage, which are correct.
• "The vacancy is full but the status still says Sourcing" - the status is not closed for you. Set it to FILLED yourself.
• "A candidate was rejected and nobody can remember why" - the Rejection Reason was left blank. It is not refused, so it has to be a habit.