Tips to Consider When Screening Applicants

Recruiting new potential employees between the fierce competition of the marketing world is quite challenging. In any organization, the hiring process takes over the whole time of organizations. The recruitment of wrong employees will lead to the organization’s loss in terms of finance as well as the brand value. In the organization, their recognition is maintained by the efficiency of the workforce and the growing number of sales every day. Human resource agency are supposed to be one of the most invaluable assets of an organization. Therefore, selecting the right candidate is highly essential for the organization. But how will you screen the best applicants among the crowd of thousands? Also, how will you save your time to be invested in misfits candidates which are not likely to be selected? Many potential candidates are fit for the job position but choosing the best among them is quite a task which consists of all the skills and capabilities required according to the job design. It will create chaos as well as confusion in the HR department. Before rushing into the recruitment method organization needs to follow some rules and guidelines for the hiring procedure. There are many screening tests to be done for selecting the employees but to cut off that time-taking technique that can delay the organization’s work, recruiters must adopt some basic yet effective ways which can simplify the whole mass into productive ones. For lowering your burden here are some tips for screening the applicants.

Before hiring the candidates, the recruiters must run some tests and interviews which helps to provide screening the applicants properly. So that the organization finds a suitable fit for the job vacancy. Let us look at some tips for screening the applicants.

Screening the employees based on their resume

A resume is one of the most important tools used for effective selection during a job interview. Resumes need to be filled with proper and precise information about the candidate which not only shows their personality but also their work ethics, skills, responsibilities held in the past, and past work experience as well. Then match the skills and abilities of the candidate which are relevant to the job position. The recruiter must prepare a must-have list of requirements and a nice-to-have list of requirements to avoid any further confusion in the applications. In this way, they can bifurcate the candidates based on their relevance to the job position. Screen the candidates accordingly and eliminate those candidates who failed to qualify those required skills. So, the recruiters can move forward with the selected candidates for another screening test.

Screening the cover letters of the candidates

Nowadays, some recruiters are demanding screen covers that contain all the strengths, weaknesses, future goals, etc. If the recruiting process of the particular organization includes the strategy of cover letters then the recruiters can ask for cover letters from the candidates or send them an open-ended questionnaire for filling it out before the deadline. If the cover letter or resume seems confusing and unconvincing then the recruiters can reject those applications in the first place.

Also Read – Tips For Remote Employee Engagement Activities

Screening to be done through phone interviews

After selecting the resume and cover letters of a candidate the next step is to contact the applicant through a phone call. A phone call will help the recruiters to determine whether the candidate is eligible for the next step or not. During the phone interview, the recruiters can ask about the candidate’s qualifications and professional information mentioned in the resume in this way they can cross-check the details shown there. The recruiter can also check the applicant’s behavior, steadiness, and talking manners during the call.

Conducting several tests for the screening process

For the next step, after the selection from the phone interview, the recruiters can conduct several screening tests that are customized according to the job requirements. The recruiter can arrange an aptitude test which is carried out for measuring the language and arithmetic ability of the candidate. Another personality test can be conducted for checking the behavioral traits of the candidate. In this way, their personality and attitude towards their profession can be analyzed.

Interviews

After all the tests if the candidate came out in flying colors then the last but not the least step is conducting a personal interview directly with hiring managers of the organization. In the personal interview, during the one-to-one communication, the hiring managers can ask the candidate about themselves, check their knowledge regarding the job position, and analyze their confidence level. The recruiters can also ask the candidates to perform some tasks or answer a quick questionnaire to check their presence of mind in the highly tense situation. In this way, the recruiters will analyze the calmness of the applicant in difficult situations during the job period. The recruiters can also evaluate if the candidate is the right fit for the culture of the organization.

Also Read – Job Interview Questions You Should Never Ask A Candidate

Running background checks for the organization’s safety

If the candidate is selected after the interview and is very convincing for the job then providing them with an offer letter is logical enough but before that, the employers must run a background check of the candidate to ensure the safety of the organization’s work culture and market value. It is essential for unleashing some security-related issues regarding the candidate. However, the background checks should be processed ethically and legally without hampering the personal details of the candidate to any outsider. Background checks can be conducted based on criminal records, verification of the documents, credit reports, and driving records. It is an important process of tips for the screening applicants before finally hiring the candidates as an employee of the respective organization.

However, after all these tests a live task or demo can be arranged by the recruiter for checking the present performance of the candidate. A skill demonstration will be good to determine their alertness during performing the job task. Simply ask them what they would do if they ran into this situation, what would be their actions for conquering this situation and why would they choose the specific technique to overcome that situation instead of using the other one. In this way, the recruiters will be able to identify if they can tackle the situation on their own or not. Also, employers can use an applicant tracking system (ATS) for managing the screening procedure more efficiently and smoothly. A proper assessment will help the hiring managers to identify the positive and negative aspects of the hiring procedure and help them in filling those gaps more effectively without any further delay.