How to Screen Candidates on Job Boards

Candidate Screening (also known as ‘Applicant Screening’, ‘Application Filtering’) allows you to pre-screen candidates during the application process in order to find more relevant candidates and, perhaps more importantly, reduce the number of unsuitable ones.

Why are there so many inappropriate candidates?

The single largest complaint by all recruiters recruiting online is that is candidate spam — that is, that too many poor and unsuitable candidates apply for their jobs.

Most of the time candidates themselves are to blame for this. Sometimes they simply don’t read the job ad. Job boards, however, are also partly responsible. In an effort to make the application process easier, many sites allow candidates to apply to many jobs at once. With a click of the mouse c candidate can send off an application to twenty or thirty different companies.

How candidate screening works

Of course, job boards are well aware of the issue of candidate spam and most now allow employers to ask pre-screening or filtering questions of candidates during the application process to help weed out unsuitable candidates. If a candidate answers a filtering question “incorrectly,” then the application process is ended or, more often, the candidate’s application is “flagged” as unsuitable. Later, when you come to review the applicants, you’ll quickly see the flagged applicants and can respond appropriately.

Screening questions to filter candidates

How you write your screening questions will largely depend on what process your job board uses. Usually, the screening questions are “tick here” boxes. But some job boards offer more options. Whatever process your job board allows, we have outlined some common “themes” in creating efficient screening questions.

1. Valid permit/work visa. Establishing whether the candidate has a valid work permit or employment visa will ensure that only people who can take up the job will actually apply for it. This question will also help mitigate against unsuitable candidates from overseas.
2. Qualification or skill set. If your job necessitates a particular qualification or specific skill set, be sure to indicate this. It will remove candidates that do not have the required qualification or skill set.
3. Experience. If your job requires the candidate to have specific work experience in order to do the job, you can put this into your screening questions. By doing so you will remove those candidates who do not have the required experience.
4. Availability for work/interview. If you require candidates to be available immediately to start work or come for interview, say this. This will filter out those candidates who are not available immediately or who may be on longer notice periods.

Other screening techniques

Even with the best job board screening that is available, the current economic environment will probably result in many applicants for your jobs. However, there are additional less direct methods that you can use to encourage candidates to do some of the pre-screening themselves.

1. Write a very tight job description. Be clear about what are the necessary skills to do the job. State that only candidates with the necessary skills will be considered.
2. Covering letter. Ask candidates for a detailed covering letter showing how their skill set matches your job. State that only candidates with the covering letter will be considered. It’s quite remarkable how many uncommitted candidates will be put off by such a task.
3. Use an application form. Increasingly, many employers and recruitment agencies are moving away from CV applications and asking candidates to make their initial application via a web form. This web form can be one that simply asks candidates to paste up their CV details or it can be a more complex and ask candidates to write short answers to typical interview questions (why should we hire you? What experience do you have that is relevant for this job? etc…)

The suggestions above are about making the process of applying for the job specific to your job and asking them to put some effort into their application. It is hoped that this will help to reduce the number of spam applications and help you sift through the good and the bad. Do be careful, however, that you don’t make the whole application process utterly tedious and put off even the good candidates.

Be nice

Finally, after making candidates jump through hoops to apply for your job; no matter how good or bad they are do them the courtesy of responding promptly to their application. While they mightn’t be suitable candidates for you, they may well be potential customers.

Note: In many jurisdictions it is illegal to discriminate against applicants on the grounds of sex, race, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief. Do be careful when creating your filtering questions that you do not inadvertently fall foul of such legislation. It is your obligation as an employer to ensure that your filtering questions, your ad copy and your selection procedure conform to applicable anti-discriminatory laws. 

Next steps? Check out these other guides and articles:

• First things first: write a job specification
• How to advertise a job vacancy
• How to respond to candidates
• How to write a job specification
• Managing Applications: how should candidates apply?