A guide to selecting serious candidates and a safe way to ensure your interviewees move quickly through your process, ensuring that you don’t lose the people you want to hire to other employers.
Brief – planned and organized – calls are an investment in getting qualified candidates and expediting your selection process. Limit them to discussion of qualifying and disqualifying factors that apply to your specific needs and the desires of the candidates. A resume doesn’t help you understand the orientation of the candidate’s search and how their needs fit with yours. Direct dialogue takes you to knock- out and keep-in factors. In a prescreen call you can establish baseline qualifiers and select candidates for more in-depth conversation to follow.
Here’s how you do it:
Be concise Ask only about the things that help you determine fit. If you need someone to work on site, you can easily screen out those who will only accept hybrid or remote work sites. If you need someone with a specific skill or knowledge set, prequalify for those. Plan the questions in advance. In a five-to-ten-minute conversation you will have learned enough to decide to formalize the conversation in an interview – or not. Be ready to conclude the call with your decision – either “Let’s schedule a time,” or “We will select applicants for interviews by Tuesday.”
When to do it:
Three examples of when a Prescreen might be to everyone’s advantage:
- The job requires commitments that not everyone will accommodate.
- Ex. Early or late hours. Fully on-site responsibilities. Travel. Match to commute time.
- Technical skills you can’t readily discern through a resume.
- Macros. Job costing. Software conversion. Industry exposure.
- Skills and knowledge, crucial to you, are not always evident on a resume. A quick preliminary conversation gives you much more to work with.
- Compensation compatibility.
- Explore expectations before either party is vested in getting to the finish line.
And then there’s This:
In minutes you know something about the individual’s communication style, soft skills, and work ethic. You’ve handled this introduction professionally and as a result, you’ve enhanced your employment brand. You may feel that you’ve got a winner on the line. The human touch of this conversation can make them feel that way, too.
After all, people work with people. We are all part of ‘The Fit’ we are trying to find.
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