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Dean Mead, Executive Chronicles |
How To Screen Applicants To Find The Best Candidates For A Job
As soon as a spot opens in a company, many managers rush to fill the position. Rushing might not be the best strategy. Filling the position quickly should take a distant second to filling the position with the best possible employee. A company does need the best person for the job. The best person is most capable of effectively performing the duties and responsibilities of the job.
While such facts are clearly understood by managers, putting reliable hiring methods into practice is never easy. Those who hire employees to fill positions must make judgment calls when screening applicants. This can be tough. In a way, hiring the right employee is like picking vape juices. People want the best. To get the best candidates, a thoughtful screening process should be put into place.
Establish a Baseline for Hiring
Before even posting a public job listing, defining what background and skills are necessary for an applicant to be seriously considered. If the job is very involved and requires a very careful understanding of the industry, a minimum of three years of experience may be required. Certain jobs could necessitate professional affiliations.
Vagueness won’t help. Not defining a professional profile bleeds over into the job advertising. That means resumes come in from a host of unqualified applicants. And it won’t be their fault.
Review Resumes with Serious Intent
Reading each and every resume closely becomes very difficult when the volume of resumes flowing into a company’s mailbox reaches massive levels. An initial screening makes sense. Looking for very obvious points to initially qualify resumes. Set aside the viable ones for the second round of review.
During the second review, skimming won’t be enough. The best applicant might be in that collection of resumes. Look over these resumes with a careful eye. Check out education, experience, awards, and other attributes with a clear eye. Doing so decreases the chances of dismissing a solid prospect due to an inadequate review process.
Request the Candidate Complete an Application
Although the person may already have submitted a resume, asking him/her to complete an application makes sense. The resume may omit information the hiring authority might find useful to examine. Also, different resumes will be organized in their own unique manner. This makes filing or storing the resumes a little difficult. The uniformity of an application eliminates this and other problems.
Devise a Telephone Screening Interview
Reducing the number of applicants down to only the most qualified ones does take a lot of work. Additional steps are required. One such step would be performing a screening interview via the telephone. Through conducting a telephone interview, the number of people called in for a more involved and comprehensive in-person interview gets cut down.
In-person interviews definitely can be involved. Both parties to the interview engage in questioning and answering. The live interview cannot be rushed or abbreviated, but this may occur when too many people must be interviewed in a short timespan. A formal telephone screening process sidesteps this issue and restricts the in-person interview to only the most qualified.
Create an Effective and Formalized Interview Process
Interviews cannot be conducted haphazardly or in a manner that all parties to the hiring process understand. If more than one person conducts interviews, the approach to interviewing and the criteria for good/bad reviews of candidates should be uniform. The same should be true of resume reviewing.
Fairness factors into a uniform hiring process. Each applicant should be given the same fair break as the other. Those taking part in the hiring process can perform their duties most effectively when given clear directions. Help them out by devising guidelines.
Avoid the Pressure to Hire
Even with instituting all the smart steps to arrive at only a small number of the best possible applicants, finding the right person can still be difficult. Avoid feeling under pressure to make a quick hiring decision. Always focus on finding the best candidate even if doing so takes more time.
