Suppose you are an HR manager who invites a job candidate for an interview. In the middle of the interview, you realize that he is totally underqualified. Apparently, he has lied on his CV, but you didn’t have a chance to notice that before the interview. Then you have another candidate, who fits quite well in terms of professional qualities, but he behaves extravagantly or even aggressively. In both cases, the candidates are obviously not suitable and should not have been invited to the interview. But it’s too late — you’ve already spent time and resources on scheduling and interviewing.
If this is a common situation in your company, as an HR manager, you play a pivotal role in the screening stage of the hiring process. This is a stage when you need to rapidly estimate a lot of applicants for a job position and sort them out, refusing those who are definitely not appropriate and inviting those who you are interested in for actual interviews. How can this stage be integrated into the recruitment process? Which tools are more effective: automatically analyzed questionnaires or virtual interview software? And what to focus on during screening?
What is the Place of Screening in the Hiring Process?
There are five stages in a common hiring process:
- Planning and strategy
The first step in the hiring process is to establish a clear strategy. This involves identifying the specific needs of your company and drafting a comprehensive job description that outlines the position’s duties, responsibilities, and necessary qualifications. The strategy also includes decisions on who, when, and how to search for new team members.
- Search
At this stage, you are just collecting as many applications as possible. Apart from obvious ways to attract candidates through job boards and social media, you may consider other sources, such as employment agencies or professional associations. There are also some internal means e.g. employee referrals or databases of previous candidates.
- Screening
Once the search is complete, you’ll have a longlist of potential candidates. The screening stage is about refining this longlist into a shortlist of candidates who are worth considering for the next stage of the process.
- Selection
If screening is done right, at this stage you will only have candidates who are more or less suitable. Actual job interviews help choose the best of them.
- Job offer
When the best candidate is selected, you can discuss specific terms.
Optimize Screening with Accurate Evaluation Principles
The main goal of screening is to save time and resources spent on recruitment. So the question is how to optimize the time spent on every longlist candidate. First of all, reduce possible decisions to only two options — a candidate whether gets on a short list or rejected completely. Then, it’s important to determine very strict estimation principles.
What exactly these are depends on the specific needs of the company and the position. However, there are some common criteria that candidates are usually expected to meet.
- Capability to perform position duties. A candidate has the required professional skills and experience.
- Culture and values. Certain requirements may vary, but generally candidates are expected to be responsible, sincere and respectful.
- Soft skills. Basic skills such as communication or time management should be developed enough.
- Availability. Candidates should match with the company’s schedule and the type of hire, e.g. full-time, part-time, seasonal, contract.
- Salary expectations.
Choose Effective Screening Methods
- Questionnaire
Recruiter makes a form and asks candidates to fill it when they apply. If questions are precise, analyzing them will be very easy. The princess may even be automatized. At the same time, there is no chance to estimate if the answers are true. Some qualities, such as soft skills, cannot be proven. Also, extensive questionnaires may discourage some candidates.
- CV review
Easy to collect and easy to screen. CVs efficiently help to reject candidates who don’t meet the bare minimum qualifications. However, they share disadvantages with questionnaires and can provide very restricted information only. Portfolios and cover letters may provide a little bit more, but they sufficiently extend screening time. Well prepared CV is possible to scan within seconds, but letters recruiters actually have to read.
- Phone or video interview
This method is way more productive. When candidates have an opportunity to express themselves, it reveals a lot of important personality traits: sincerity, thoughtfulness, enthusiasm, and so on. Video interviews are even more fruitful. We gain about 50–80% of information by non-verbal communication, i.e. by voice timbre and body language. We can get an impression of a person within seconds if we see him.
Such effectiveness comes at a cost in time. Scheduling screening interviews is a pain in the neck. Recruiters can barely control how much time each of these interviews will take. Candidates can be late or even don’t show up at all. When screening is finished, the whole cycle has to be done again for an actual job interview.
- Asynchronous video interview
This method essentially combines the benefits of questionnaires and video interviews. To apply, candidates record video answers to the questions prepared by recruiters. They can do it at their convenience, and recruiters can choose time to watch recordings as well. So both sides don’t depend on each other.
Visual presentation is nearly as informative as a real-time interview. It may lack a bit of spontaneity as candidates can prepare their answers, however it still provides an integral picture of their strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, this method takes dramatically less time than regular video interviews. With proper virtual interview software, one can review dozens of video applications in a few minutes.
Asynchronous interviews are the most progressive screening method, but the novelty may be considered a downside. Some candidates may feel uncomfortable dealing with unusual ways to apply. However, sooner or later it will spread and become a common part of recruitment.
Prepare Relevant Screening Questions
Unlike the later stage interview, screening is focused on finding candidates who are generally capable of doing a job, rather than finding the best ones.
So the recruiter shouldn’t prepare critical-thinking tests, deeply analyze the candidate’s personality or ask the opinion of other team members during a screening. All of this may be implemented on a selection stage. Screening is supposed to outline a candidate’s personal traits and experience related to the position.
The best tactic for a screening is to hand the initiative to candidates and let them show themselves. So the questions for a screening interview should be quite common and simple. Exact questions may depend on the position, but there are some general ones that can be used for almost any screening interview.
- Tell us about yourself
- Why do you want to work in our company?
- What’s the best project you’ve ever worked on?
- Why did you quit your previous job?
- What is your ideal work environment?
These questions are usually enough to estimate candidates’ basic abilities and personal traits. You can ask some more questions if you want to know something specific, such as salary expectations. However, the fewer questions there are, the better, especially if you are preparing an asynchronous interview.
