In my experience as a recruiter, I’ve found that a well-organized candidate screening process is key to hiring success. Screening helps you quickly assess a candidate’s skills, experience, and potential fit with your team, making it easier to determine who should move forward in the hiring process. An efficient screening strategy saves time, reduces costs, and ensures you’re focusing on candidates who are truly the best fit for the job. In this guide, we’ll explore how to build an effective and streamlined candidate screening process to help you make smarter hiring decisions.
The Importance of a Thorough Screening Process
The screening process you use to learn more about candidates serves many valuable purposes. Screening enhances your recruitment efforts by:
Identifying necessary skills
Simply put, can the person feasibly do the job, or can’t they? Screening determines whether a candidate possesses the necessary technical and soft skills to meet expectations and do the job effectively.
Studies have shown that hiring based on skills results in stronger employee fit and higher productivity, and it’s a practice that’s on the rise among employers. In 2023, 73% of firms used skills-based hiring, up from 56% the year prior.
Eliminating candidates who don’t meet the criteria
This may seem like a basic step, but it bears mentioning. I have spoken to many managers who have walked into an interview only to realize that the candidate they’re speaking with is unqualified. It’s a waste of time for both parties and takes your attention away from candidates who do meet the requirements.
Screening for those essential job requirements will quickly filter out candidates who fail to meet the experience requirements or otherwise aren’t a strong enough fit to be effective in the job.
Assessing for culture fit
Sometimes, an applicant meets all of the requirements on paper, but once you get on the phone with them, it becomes clear that their idea of the role is out of line with the actual duties or that their work preferences mean they likely wouldn’t be satisfied in this particular position. Screening is a valuable opportunity to assess for fit before the more rigorous interview process.
In many roles this is almost more important that technical skills. It’s frequently easier to train someone to use a specific technology at your company than it is to deal with a conflict of personality. Your coworkers may have to work closely with this individual for a long time, so you want to ensure that they match your team and company dynamic.
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Preventing hiring mistakes
Inadequate screening is a major contributor to hiring mistakes. By thoroughly investigating a candidate’s capabilities up front, you’ll save yourself from the much bigger inconvenience of a hiring mistake that becomes apparent later on.
10 Steps To Successfully Screen Job Applicants
1. Review the job description
Before you begin looking at candidates, review the job description to make sure the important qualifications are fresh in your mind. This is a key step as it reminds you of the essential things you need to be looking for on each resume. Create a detailed list of criteria that includes:
- Essential qualifications. This covers the skills, education, and experience that are non-negotiable to move forward in the hiring process.
- Nice-to-have characteristics. This includes things like personality traits, additional experience, and other attributes that would give a candidate extra points but are not an absolute requirement.
- Culture fit. What core values and personality traits would make a candidate fit in well in your organization?
- KPIs of success. Define how performance will be measured and what KPIs you’re looking for the right candidate to achieve.
2. Use an applicant tracking system
An applicant tracking system, or ATS, greatly simplifies the process of tracking and filtering candidates. It can automatically scan all application materials looking for specific keywords and identifying candidates who meet the minimum qualifications. An ATS also allows you to prioritize candidates for outreach and keep a record of your interactions with each individual. It’s something any team that does regular hiring should have.
3. Conduct initial resume screening
Review resumes for the criteria you outlined in step one (or use an ATS to complete this step). In addition to verifying candidates’ qualifications, look at important details that add context, like work history and achievements. Does the candidate have any employment gaps that need to be addressed? Does their resume note accomplishments demonstrating the value they can add to a team?
As you review resumes and flag candidates you want to speak with, take notes about specific details you want to discuss in your conversation so you can reference these during a phone or video call.
Related: Resume Red Flags
4. Read cover letters
Include cover letters in your initial screening if you require cover letters as part of your application process. Cover letters can provide useful insight on a candidate’s goals, career trajectory, and alignment with your company’s values.
5. Complete phone or video screenings
Once you’ve ruled out candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements, the next step is to talk live with those who do. This is done via phone or video call and is the prerequisite to the interview stage.
In a screening call, a recruiter or HR staffer asks questions to learn more about a candidate’s strengths and suitability for the role. During this step, you may gain additional information that allows you to filter a candidate out or definitively advance them to the interview stage.
At 4CR, this is our most essential step, and we generally try to speak to all candidates who don’t outright lack critical skills. This is simply because you can learn so much more from a 10-minute phone call than you could from a simple resume.
Here are some good topics to ask about during a phone or video screening.
Candidate background
Ask questions to learn more about an applicant’s work history and interest in the job, like:
- Tell me about yourself.
- What motivates you?
- Why are you interested in this position?
- Why are you leaving your current job?
- What do you know about our company?
- How soon are you looking to start a new position?
Skills and experience
Inquire about skills and experience detailed in the candidate’s resume to understand how they might apply them in this role and company. Address any questions you noted while reviewing their application materials. Here are some good things to ask:
- What strengths make you a good fit for this job?
- What prior experience has prepared you for this role?
- What are your biggest accomplishments during your time as [current job title]?
- I noticed a gap in your employment during [dates]. Can you tell me more about that?
- It looks like you previously worked in [different industry]. How do those skills transfer to this industry?
Fit
Since this is your first chance to hear from the candidate directly, it’s an important opportunity to assess fit, which can’t be gleaned from a resume alone. It’s also a good time to make sure you’re aligned with the candidate on salary. Ask questions like:
- What is your ideal work environment?
- How well do you work as part of a team?
- What motivates you?
- What are career goals?
- What are your salary expectations?
Based on your screening calls, create a shortlist of applicants who will be offered an interview.
Related: How to Conduct a Phone Interview
6. Allow candidates to ask questions
Screening isn’t a one-way process. The candidate is screening you as well, and in that pursuit, they probably have some questions of their own. So, your screening call should give them a chance to ask those questions.
The topics a candidate raises can tell you a lot about their motivations, thought processes, and interest in the role itself. Do they ask questions that are relevant to the job? Do they seem interested in the right aspects of the job, like its opportunities and challenges, or are they more concerned with starting quickly and collecting a paycheck? If they don’t have any questions for you at all, it could signal a lack of preparation or low interest in the job.
7. Use skills assessments
If certain technical skills are a make-or-break component for success in a role, like computer programming or data analytics, incorporate testing for these skills into your screening process. Use skills tests to assess candidates on an objective scale and use their scores to determine whether to advance them to the next round.
8. Review social media
These days, a person’s real-world identity is intertwined with their online persona. You want to hire employees who present themselves in a professional manner not just face to face, but virtually, as well. Reviewing candidates’ social media profiles can reveal useful information about their values, professionalism, and judgment to ensure you’re considering candidates who will reflect positively on your company.
9. Look for red flags
Certain characteristics can’t be identified with an automated screening tool, and this is why there should always be a human aspect in hiring. A recruiter requires discretion to sense warning signs that a candidate may not be a good choice. Throughout the process you should pay attention to indicators like:
Low enthusiasm
A candidate should seem excited at the prospect of joining your team, not act as though you’re just another company in the sea of applications they’ve submitted. Get to the bottom of a candidate’s lackluster attitude with questions like “what caught your eye about this position?” If they can’t cite concrete details, it’s probably a sign they’re not all that interested in this particular role.
Negative comments about previous jobs/employers
If a candidate speaks poorly of their current or former job, boss, or company, it’s not a good look. Badmouthing a previous employer is unprofessional and conveys a lack of understanding of appropriate workplace behavior.
Lying/misrepresenting details
While it’s not all that common to catch a candidate in an outright lie, it’s much more common for applicants to stretch the truth or misrepresent elements of their candidacy to give them a better shot at being hired. If something smells fishy and a candidate can’t explain the discrepancy, it raises serious questions about their ability to do the job with integrity.
10. Create a shortlist and proceed to interviews
Using all the data points your screening process has produced, create a shortlist of candidates who will advance to the next hiring phase and be granted one or more interviews.
By following a measured, objective, thorough, and consistent approach to candidate screening, you can accelerate your recruitment process, reduce the chance of hiring the wrong person, and make better-quality hires overall.
Simplify Candidate Screening With Expert Assistance
Candidate screening is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. Outsourcing screening to a seasoned professional can reduce the burden on busy HR team members.
The team at 4 Corner Resources can quickly and thoroughly screen applicants and provide you with a selection of high-quality candidates for closer consideration. Get started by talking to us about your hiring needs today.
