Which methods determine if an applicant is most qualified for the job?

By Indeed Editorial Team

September 15, 2021

Employees are one of the most significant assets a company has. Therefore, it's essential to have the best candidate fill an open position. As an HR manager, you may want to get employees who can match your company's culture and mission. A way to screen candidates is thus necessary to help you find a qualified candidate through various tests and provisions of information from applicants. In this article, we define what an applicant screening process is and give steps you may use to create one.

What is an applicant screening process?

An applicant screening process is used by recruiters and hiring managers to obtain information from an applicant's cover letter or resume and follow up with an initial interview over the phone or computer. Screening processes in HR are naturally structured to enable hiring managers to recruit the best person for the job.

Hiring managers review the candidate's information to determine whether they are the best fit for recruiting. In this stage, a candidate's education, skills, and experiences are examined to determine whether they match the company's open role. Candidate applications that cannot meet the quota don't move to the next hiring stage.

Why use a screening process?

Here are several benefits of screening candidates:

Helps hiring managers acquire the best candidates

HR employees use screening processes to hire quality candidates. This means that the process is feasible and can be applied for recruitment purposes. Its usefulness proves that it's adequate to help managers obtain the best-suited employee for the job. It's also a strategic and orderly approach to recruitment applicable to most roles.

Related: Interview Question: "Why Should We Hire You?"

Gives hiring managers an opportunity to interact with candidates

Sometimes, it's possible to dismiss a valuable candidate without knowing. Screening helps you gauge all candidates fairly and give them an equal chance to exhibit their best characteristics and how they relate to the open position. Doing this can give you an opportunity to understand them better before dismissing or onboarding them.

Prevents loss of time if the employee turns out to be unfit for the role

This integration into the existing workforce is time-consuming. Screening may help save you a lot of time since you're sure the employee is suitable for the job. It also helps you focus on the most qualified candidates, thereby streamlining the whole process.

Related: Interview Training Tips for Hiring Managers

Screening may help reduce employee turnover

A significant challenge with most businesses is finding employees who can work for an extended period. A high turnover rate is costly to the company in terms of money and time spent during recruitment, training, and integration into the workplace. When you screen candidates, you may find it simpler to pinpoint the candidates who display characteristics that may keep them at a job for a serious length of time. Some questions such as, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" can determine whether you can meet the candidate's goals in the organization.

Screening protects the company culture

Screening may help you learn of an applicant's past that gives information about their behaviour and future. This enables you to select candidates who can bring positivity to the workplace and boost the morale of the team they join. Additionally, screening may help you identify employees who may align with the company culture. Selecting unfit candidates may destabilize the company's morale and, to some extent, spread negative traits or behaviours to other team members.

Minimizes disruptions

Pre-screening candidates helps you save time by limiting the number of candidates who make it to the in-person interview stage. Many staff members dedicate their time to different activities such as advertising the open positions and scheduling meetings during a recruitment cycle. This may disrupt normal business operations that are equally important. Some interviews may also involve senior-level management with high-priority duties that require keen focus. Therefore, screening is essential as it may limit the number of meetings or interviews to be conducted.

Minimizes losses that may arise from a failed recruitment drives

There are many costs associated with recruitment. These include advertising, employee bonuses, referral payouts, stationery costs, and hospitality expenses. When a company fails to get a qualified candidate for the role or the new employee under probation fails to fulfill the expected role, it's necessary to recruit a new candidate. With screening, you may get the best candidate and have a pool of other qualified candidates you can hire right away, saving you on costs.

How to develop a screening process

Follow these steps to develop an efficient process to screen candidates:

1. Use minimum qualifications to examine resumes

You may explore all applicants' resumes while checking if they meet the minimum qualifications. You may then eliminate those not meeting the minimum compulsory qualifications in this stage. Applicant tracking software helps save you time since it looks for specific keywords and qualifications in the resumes. It may also be possible to analyze thousands of applications with the software.

2. Check with references

Referees usually have had experience working with the said candidate. They may also understand the candidate better and give a more precise opinion on their behaviour or character traits. You may call or email them to inquire about the applicant. You can inquire on skills, performance, learning ability, or even verify the candidate's resume. References can also provide insight into the applicant's work ethic, strengths, and how to handle them.

Related: What Is a Phone Screening Interview?

3. Research online

You can use search engines to find more information about a candidate. You may also obtain a lot of valuable information from their professional profiles and social media accounts. They may have written a related article in a newspaper, published a paper in a journal, or received a prestigious award. You can then use the information obtained to gauge whether the candidate is fit for the role.

4. Look for preferred qualifications

After the preceding steps, you may now check if the candidates have non-mandatory but preferred qualifications. These qualifications may include excellent time management skills or someone with a certain amount of experience in the field. It's good practice to identify the “good-to-have” items so that you can identify them quickly when skimming through an applicant's resume.

5. Organize a pre-screening interview

This step involves scheduling and interviewing to assess the skills and qualifications the applicants possess. The applicants who have made it to this stage meet both the minimum and preferred qualifications. This can also be a verification tool to assess the extent of the qualification and skill of a candidate. If you have a low number of applicants at this stage, you may consider including those who met the minimum qualifications.

During the interview, you can ask questions of the candidates based on their resumes to observe whether they were honest about their skills and experiences. Pre-screening helps you determine whether you still want to proceed with the candidate. If the candidate's answers don't meet their resume claims, you may consider that they may have exaggerated their traits.

Related: Guide to Pre-Screen Interview Questions

6. Administer a skills test

Skills tests check if candidates have the skills necessary for the job ahead. For example, a financial role can have an accounting test to observe whether the candidates are qualified to be accountants. Tests also have deadlines which help you observe the candidate under tension. The deadline also helps you see how a candidate manages their time. For functional roles, such as architecture, engineering, and medicine, you may give the candidate a paid project and see how they deliver the results. This can be done if you strongly wish to appoint a candidate.

7. Run a background check

You can do a background check for some positions which require extreme caution. For instance, in a position that would require interaction with children, you may check the applicant's criminal background. For a position such as a company driver, you may check the driving record.

Related: How Long Are Interviews?: A Complete Guide

Tips for a successful employee applicant screening process

The following tips help you have an efficient way to screen applicants:

• Always take notes to help keep a record of facts for later revisiting or reviewing.

• Open-ended questions help you obtain more useful information.

• Listening may help encourage the candidate to share more about themselves.

• You may maintain consistency and fairness throughout the whole process by asking each applicant the same questions.

• Avoid hiding information from the applicants as they progress in the different levels of hiring.

• How a company treats applicants may have an influence on the company's brand perception.

• Invest in an applicant tracking system that saves you time and costs while pre-screening.

• Ensure your process to screen candidates is brief and concise.