SCREENING THE CANDIDATES (PT 1)

Previously, we looked at resourcing strategies to attract the best candidates to your organisation and up until now you have been able to go at your own pace when managing this. However, once the candidates' CVs or applications are arriving the pressure is on you to stay on top of the process.

To make good recruiting decisions you must apply a consistent approach to reviewing applicants, while all the time you need to remember that the candidates who can make a difference are also sought by your competitors and many other companies so the whole process you're following has to be quick. Like I said, the pressure is on!

Time management

The screening process is fairly straightforward if there are only a small number of applicants and that may be the case for rare skill sets. However, the general reality is that there will always be a large number of respondents and that means reviewing them all properly can quickly get out of hand.

So, remembering that the best applicants are snapped up fast, you have to be able to set time aside quickly to review the applicants, set interviews and make the appointment. This is easier said than done!  We are all working to tight budgets and staffing numbers, and so we're all already extremely busy with little room to delegate tasks to already-maxed-out colleagues. This means managing your time is crucial. Having an 'expiry date' in your mind for CVs as they arrive is a very helpful first step.

The recruitment industry understands the need for speed. As a recruiter, the best time to be working on a permanent placement is when the client's interview process has already started because once under way the process typically will only take a couple of weeks rather than the six-to-eight that can be involved while CVs were being submitted and reviewed. Recruiters know that "time kills all deals" and that the best applicants rapidly find other roles, so a two week time frame means that there is a much greater chance of the placement happening when compared to the standard six-to-eight weeks.

If you do adopt my suggestion of an 'expiry date' for CVs to help keep the process moving quickly then by all means you can carry on reviewing additional CVs as they come in after that date, and adding additional interview slots for the late arrivals if they are good enough. However, you must start the process according to your initially set time-frame otherwise the good candidates that you thought might well be right at the outset will have disappeared while you were waiting for late arrivals.

The key element to running the process effectively is not to allow the CVs to build up. Reviewing 10 CVs is more straightforward and less daunting than reviewing 100. So, for 20 minutes at the start or end of each day you review the CVs that have come in and short list accordingly. This is much easier than printing off 100 CVs on Friday to read over the weekend. It creates additional stress and sours the weekend, especially the Sunday night when you invariably get around to doing it! And reviewing applicants in a sour mood is no way forward.

Managing the Screening if you are Working with Recruiters

If you are working with recruiters the number of applications can be controlled more effectively: if hiring through a Preferred Supplier List then insist on seeing only the best two or three CVs from each supplier. The issue with the PSL is that it usually has three-to-five recruitment firms in competition with each other. As such they have to send a CV as they come across it, to avoid a competing firm submitting it prior to them. This means some of the quality control is not there and that any better candidates they discover later in the process require special dispensation to be submitted or, worse,  are not submitted at all.

If dealing with a recruiter that you have personally chosen, then you will already have established they know the good from the bad and that they can supply you with the best three CVs. You should expect them to take a couple of days to come back to you so that they can carry this work out effectively.

If a recruiter sends a large volume of CVs then do not work with them. Their role is to carry out much of the initial screening for you. If they can't do this then there is little or no value to the relationship and you should find someone who can genuinely help you employ the best people for your business.

Next Time:

How to screen the CVs successfully.