Some estimates say that job listings attract an average of 250 applications each. Even if that’s not completely accurate, with around 50% of the global workforce keeping an eye on job openings or actively looking for another job, even smaller businesses can expect an influx of applications for their vacancies.
With so much interest, it can be hard (or even a little overwhelming) trying to narrow down your options and eventually select the one candidate that most closely aligns with your needs and expectations for the role.
To help, we’ve put together a 20-step guide for screening candidates effectively and outlined some key information and handy tips for you to bear in mind.
Table of contents:
What is candidate screening?
Candidate screening refers to the process of reviewing job applications to identify the applicants that most closely fit your requirements for a given role. There are many things to consider during this process, from the information that’s been included in résumés and cover letters to the applicants’ soft skills, technical skills and personal qualities.
Why is candidate screening important?
Successful candidate screening has multiple benefits for your company’s financial performance as well as your existing teams and their output. This is because:
You hire suitable candidates
Candidate screening allows you to identify and select the applicant who has the highest chances of fitting in with the rest of your team and successfully carrying out the responsibilities you will be assigning them. Naturally, this can benefit your entire team, as it can enhance collaboration, minimize conflict and boost overall productivity.
You save precious resources
Hiring candidates who both make a good cultural fit and are qualified for the role reduces the likelihood of them resigning or you having to let them go. As replacing candidates can end up costing up to twice as much as their annual income, this is in your best interest!
You reduce voluntary turnover
Hiring people who are a bad fit for the role and company can have detrimental effects on your wider team. First of all, the person themselves will be likelier to throw in the towel — but if they don’t (and if you don’t replace them quickly), they can make everyone else’s life difficult in the workplace.
20 steps to effectively screen a candidate
In this section, we’ll discuss 20 steps you can take to ensure that the candidate you end up onboarding is a great match for your company culture as well as the role at hand.
1. Define your hiring criteria
The first step to screening candidates effectively is clearly defining your hiring criteria. Consider the role carefully and outline the responsibilities that come with it to identify your non-negotiables. Then, consider any additional skills or qualifications which could give applicants an advantage, enabling them to do an even better job.
If you already have people on your team working in similar roles, talk to them; they might have important tips or insights to share.
2. Write an effective job description
To hire the most suitable candidate for your job opening, you must first attract suitable candidates. That’s why it’s important to spend enough time crafting a compelling job description that clearly conveys your expectations.
Some characteristics of an effective job description are as follows:
- It’s up to date
- It’s comprehensive
- It’s easy to read, making use of bullet points and short, to-the-point sentences
- It conveys the tone of your employer brand
- It uses inclusive language and reaffirms your commitment to providing equal opportunities
3. Use an ATS
Applicant tracking systems can save you time by automating some of the processes involved in screening, hiring and onboarding candidates.
They can quickly scan résumés for relevant skills and experiences, and help you sort documents using your own criteria (such as specific keywords), so you only spend time looking through the ones that are likely to be a good fit.
In addition, ATSs make your life easier if you’re posting your job openings on different job boards, consolidating all the documents you receive in one place.
4. Review résumés
Even if you use an ATS, there will come a point where you will have to manually review some résumés. When doing so, keep an eye out for specific keywords that convey your required experiences and expertise.
Printing out a list of your non-negotiable skills and your nice-to-have ones can allow you to quickly tick off the abilities each candidate possesses, as well as jot down quick notes about each applicant.
5. Review cover letters
When reviewing cover letters, you can follow a similar procedure to the one above. Much like résumés, cover letters should (ideally) include easy-to-pinpoint keywords that fill you in on candidates’ relevant experiences, skills and qualifications.
Depending on the language used, overall tone and additional information shared, you will be able to gauge the applicant’s cultural fit to an extent, too.
6. Conduct initial phone interviews
Once you have identified your strongest candidates, it’s time to begin the process of slowly narrowing them down.
Phone screening is convenient in that it allows you a glimpse at the applicants’ attitudes and ways of thinking in a short amount of time. Keeping your phone calls brief (around 15 minutes long) is a good rule of thumb, especially when screening many candidates.
7. Conduct video screenings
Video screenings differ to video interviews (although you can certainly choose to conduct both) in that they can take on an “on-demand” format. This one-way approach entails providing candidates with a few written or (ideally) pre-recorded questions, and having them submit a short video response for each.
8. Schedule in-person interviews
Unless you’re hiring remotely, it’s a good idea to meet your candidates in person. Nonverbal communication (such as body language) can reveal a lot of information about a candidate’s attitude, manners and confidence — or lack thereof.
It’s recommended to interview a minimum of three people for each vacancy, and have in-person interviews last between 45–90 minutes.
9. Conduct skills assessments
Testing candidates’ hard skills through assessments (such as programming quizzes, for example) can be a great way of judging how they might perform on the job — but bear in mind that interview nerves can get in the way, especially if you give them the test in person as opposed to asking them to complete it in their own time.
10. Use aptitude tests
As opposed to assessment tests that allow you to measure specific skills, aptitude tests tell you more about a candidate’s ability to develop new abilities, should you at any point decide to upskill or reskill them.
11. Use personality tests
Asking your candidates to fill out pre-employment questionnaires can help you identify relevant and useful personality traits for the role you’re looking to fill and your company’s culture on the whole.
Personality tests can be a handy tool in your screening process, allowing you to uncover what motivates candidates, how they think and communicate, and what their overall attitudes are.
12. Look up candidates on social media
A Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of Express Employment Professionals showed that 71% of hiring decision-makers agree that social media screening is effective when vetting applicants.
However, you may want to take the things you see online with a pinch of salt. A lot of the time, the type of personality or lifestyle people project on social platforms is not a reliable indication of what they might be like in person.
Having said that, it’s generally good to keep an eye out for any offensive or intolerant views, particularly if you lead a diverse team. Again, though, if a post dates back several years, it might not represent who that person is today.
13. Contact referees
Contacting referees can play a vital role in successfully screening your applicants. It’s a good idea to wait until after you have conducted your initial interviews to do this, as you’ll want to form your own opinion about the candidates, without being influenced by someone else’s words.
14. Verify candidates’ employment and education
Besides contacting your shortlisted candidates’ referees, you might also want to validate the information they provided regarding other roles they held and their educational background.
15. Conduct background checks
If the role you’re hiring for requires you to run a criminal background check on your shortlisted candidates, you’ll want to allow enough time for it. When candidates have only lived in one state, the check can be completed fairly swiftly. If, however, you’re looking to verify records from various states (or countries), this can take much longer.
16. Consider candidates’ salary expectations
As you approach making your final decision, it’s important to consider each applicant’s salary expectations.
While you want to strike the best possible deal for your company, it’s important to bear in mind the applicants’ qualifications and achievements, as well as their performance on any assessment or aptitude tests you have given them. Saving money in the short term can backfire later on!
17. Narrow down your choices
Once you have taken all the steps that we have outlined so far, you should be equipped to make an informed decision. Decide who the strongest applicant is for this position, and identify your runners-up in case you don’t reach an agreement with your preferred candidate.
18. Consider who makes the best cultural fit
Assessing whether a candidate makes a good cultural fit requires you to first know what your culture is all about, down to a T. Consider what your core values and vision are as a company, and what traits you hope to bring out in your employees and lead them with
For example, if you place emphasis on maintaining an environment of trust, transparency and empathy, consider how honest and reliable your shortlisted candidates are based on what you know about them and their previous experiences.
19. Ask your team for feedback
Before making your final decision on who to onboard, it might be a good idea to speak to the rest of your team and ask them to share their opinions. This is especially true for the workers who are going to have regular interactions with the new joiner, either on a daily or weekly basis.
Those employees know the work best: they know what it takes to do a good job, as well as what some common pitfalls are. Share what you know about the shortlisted candidates with your team, from their résumés to any assessment and personality test results, and allow your team to voice their opinions.
20. Offer job trials
Paid trial periods typically last between 30–180 days, with 3-month job trials being perhaps the most common. At the end of the day, no matter how good an applicant looks on paper, for one reason or another they might end up not performing or behaving in the way you would have expected.
The only true way of knowing what they will be like in the workplace is to test them in a real-life setting; but if you want to get a representative picture, ensure you provide them with all the training and support that’s required for them to thrive.
Best practices for candidate screening
Let’s look at five best practices you should bear in mind when screening candidates for one of your vacancies:
- Identify must-have and nice-to-have skills. For each role you advertise, you must set clear non-negotiables and nice-to-have skills. Your non-negotiables should function as “knock-out” questions, eliminating candidates who fail to meet those criteria.
- Address unconscious biases. Unconscious bias training can play a crucial role in identifying and onboarding the right people for your team.
- Use a good mix of interview questions. Different types of questions, such as behavioral and technical questions, will allow you to gain a holistic understanding of each candidate.
- Discuss employment gaps. It might be in your best interest not to immediately disqualify candidates with gaps on their résumé. Give them a chance to explain what the situation was and how they made use of that time.
- Look out for inconsistent information. If a candidate’s résumé includes different information compared to their LinkedIn profile (such as job titles and employment dates), this could be a red flag.
FAQs about candidate screening
As we’ve seen, there is a lot to consider when screening job applicants. It’s expected, then, that you may have some more questions on the subject!
What if a candidate doesn’t respond to my calls or emails?
There are many reasons a candidate might be unresponsive when you first reach out to them. If you haven’t given them a specific time for when they can expect your call, do so, and ask them to confirm that it works for them. If you’ve both agreed on a time and they still couldn’t take the call, give them a chance to explain what happened. If the reason sounds valid, consider rescheduling with them.
How many background checks should I run?
You want to run a mix of checks, from contacting referees to verifying candidates’ education histories and assigning them some tests. If you only rely on one, the image it paints might not be representative. References from previous employers, for example, can oftentimes not be indicative of candidates’ future performance.
What are some good questions to ask during a pre-screening phone call?
You could benefit from asking the following questions early on: “What stood out to you about our company?”, “What are your salary expectations for this role?”, “What is your current notice period?”, “What is your ideal working environment?”, “Describe yourself to me in a few words.”
Key takeaways
We hope that our guide on how to screen job applicants has been useful to you! Before you go, let’s summarize the main points we addressed in this article:
- Candidate evaluation begins and ends with you. To make an informed choice, you must start by clearly defining your values, vision and expectations for the role.
- Unconscious biases can cause you to reject great candidates. Ensure your employees and leaders especially are trained to recognize and manage this.
- Candidate assessment methods vary. Your best bet is to implement a range of checks to arrive at a holistic picture for each of your candidates.
Can you think of any additional tips or advice for screening candidates effectively? Share your thoughts with us and fellow hiring decision makers in the comments section below!
This article is a complete update of an earlier version originally published back in 2022.