To Screen or Not to Screen: Lessons from the Recruitment Trenches

Recruitment Systems

How do you assess potential employees? Are you using screening questions or other methods? Do they work?

Screening questions are part of the recruitment process and are supported by the latest recruitment software packages. This is especially important when dealing with high volume recruitment processes. There are many views on the topic of screening, in particular when it comes to the effectiveness of using e-recruitment software tools.

So how do we Define Screening Questions?

Screening questions are specific questions we ask a candidate in the context of a role. The answers to these questions provide valuable assessment data that then is used to compare and filter candidates. This can save invaluable time (to both recruiters and candidates) and improve the quality of the process if done right.

Typically you ask these questions online. For certain types of recruitment campaigns such as customer support roles or where you need to measure English understanding or communication skills in general, you can use voice-based interviews or screening. Using the right technology, you can allow candidates to call a particular number to answer screening questions via the telephone.

RecruitAdvantage’s Screening Question Research Findings:

A couple of years ago, at the request of one of our clients, we undertook to analyse and understand the behaviour of candidates around screening questions. We were interested in determining whether or not candidates would, for example, lie through screening tests and what would be the ideal candidate experience when it comes to screening questions.

The results of this research were enlightening. Some candidates would lie if they perceived the screening process as a gate keeping process but were less likely to if they perceived the screening process as a relevant context definition tool for the role. Based on this information, if the screening process is taken lightly, the results could be poor. It is relatively simple to get this process right, by following a few common sense rules.

Some Guidelines for an Effective Screening Process – Three Valuable Rules:

Having the right to work in Australia is an important requirement for roles in this country. The typical question I see recruiters ask around this requirement is: "Are you an Australian citizen?" - and the possible answers are invariably "Yes" and "No".

Here is the first rule: Avoid "Yes/No" questions whenever possible and try not to give away the selection criteria, so you can make the process a bit more meaningful.

In the context of the citizenship example, as it stands you are implying that if the candidate answers 'no', you will actually reject that particular candidate and that may be fair, but how about if you structure the question in a different way?

Instead you can ask the question "Please indicate your citizenship status" and give the candidate a few more options, such as: "I am an Australian citizen"; "I am a permanent resident"; "I am looking for sponsorship"; and "I have a student visa". In this case you are able to collect a bit more information, and make it a non-threatening process for the candidate.

The second rule is to make sure you go and screen your questions in terms of grammar and spelling. This area is more basic and I have to say it makes a lot of recruiters look unprofessional. It is very important that the recruiter has got the minimum standards required to actually portray the right image for the company.

The third and last rule is don't ask too many questions. Make it short, make it relevant and easy for the candidate. At the end of the day, we don't want the screening questions to be a reason for a candidate not to continue with the application process.

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