4 Ways to Improve Your Candidate Screening Process

When organizations decide to cut corners in candidate screenings in order to speed up the process, they ultimately lose in the long run. While speeding up the process can be helpful by reducing the risk of losing great candidates to other offers, speeding it up too much to the point of making multiple hiring mistakes will negatively affect a company’s bottom line.

There’s no question about it; finding and attracting top talent is difficult. But once you find your talent, screening them to ensure cultural fit and company success shouldn’t be. Below are a few simple ways to improve your candidate screening process to ensure overall company success.

Assign pre-hire projects.

While many candidates will have portfolios or personal websites displaying their work, for some candidates it is better to showcase their skills through pre-hire assignments or projects in real-time. Especially if the candidate is going through an industry change where their current projects don’t necessarily line up with the organization they are applying for, this is a great way to see what they can do within a deadline. This way they can do their research on the company and present a polished project showing what value they will bring to the company.

Some companies will also administer pre-hire tests to ensure a candidate is a perfect fit. For a few examples of awesome hiring tests, check out the blog post written by Spark Hire’s CEO, Josh Tolan titled “9 Creative Hiring Tests You Need to Know About.”

Use social media as a tool.

We’ve all been guilty of social media stalking at some point or another, whether we’re aware of it or not. We log on to Facebook (or any other social media outlet) to check in on what our friends and family are up to, we stumble on a picture of them with someone we don’t know, and 10 minutes later we find ourselves browsing around profiles for no reason other than curiosity. Using social media for screening candidates is similar to this – except screening for hiring has a purpose; the purpose of finding a professional, responsible potential hire.

It’s becoming more common that companies ask for applicant’s social profiles, and for great reason. Social media profiles give the hiring team insights on how an applicant behaves outside of work, and how their opinions may affect the company’s values. While LinkedIn is great for diving in on candidate’s past work experience and checking references, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram give great insight into the personality of a candidate and how they will mesh within the company culture.

Conduct video interviews.

Don’t be afraid of innovative tools like video interviewing technology. Video interviews are popular in the screening process of recruiting and hiring for many reasons. First off, video interviews save a ton of time in the first steps of recruiting efforts. Now, it’s much easier to weed out bad candidates early on by determining which candidates aren’t fully qualified or do not meet the necessary traits of a good candidate.

Companies use one-way video interviews to connect with candidates in a more convenient way by sending over pre-set questions for candidates to answer on their own time. This is particularly handy for passive candidates, remote workers, and for those who currently hold a full-time position elsewhere.

Share your findings with your team.

Be sure your recruiter is an awesome notetaker, and communicates detailed insights with you regarding every candidate. This way, hiring pros can share their notes and thoughts with the other team members involved with hiring decisions. By sharing and collaborating on each candidate, better hiring decisions are made.

In order to improve a candidate screening process, it is clear that every single person involved with the hiring decisions must be on the same page. After all, an organized hiring process will lead to a long-term positive impact within the company. With these 4 tips, you’ll start to notice your screening process becoming more and more seamless with time.

For even more ways on how to streamline your process, check out Spark Hire’s whitepaper titled “Tips for Streamlining Your Hiring Process & Maximizing Time With Video Interviewing”.

What does your candidate screening process look like? What improvements have you made in order to create a seamless process? Comment below to start the conversation.

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