Let’s face it.

Jobs are scarce, and hundreds of qualified candidates apply to every job vacancy. So, how do recruiters and hiring managers narrow down to the right candidate from ALL those applications? 

They scrutinize résumés—every single one, for hours. Typically, recruiters spend up to 41 days per hire, according to LinkedIn’s data. Imagine diving into an ocean of personal data looking for a pearl. In an age where you can buy Gigayachts worth $168 million online, surely there must be a faster way to identify the most relevant candidates!

Of course, the difficulty lies in reading between the lines of candidates’ virtually identical CVs. Every one of them has a demonstrated history of being awesome, and they are all skilled at so many things you start experiencing Impostor Syndrome!

This is where Preliminary Screening comes in. Preliminary Screening tools offer a quick, objective, and unbiased path to shortlisting job applicants. If you believe a candidate’s skills must be tested to make rational recruiting decisions, read on.

What is Preliminary Screening?

Preliminary screening or pre-employment screening is a series of assessments that allows you to screen potential candidates and select the most suitable match (for the job, just in case you’ve forgotten!).

A typical pre-hiring screening process consists of the following steps:

  • Screen candidates for relevant aptitudes and skills needed to succeed in the job

  • Check if legitimate data is provided on their resume

  • Screen personality traits and cultural fit

And when you’re done with this thorough vetting, you can confidently send out that much-awaited letter of acceptance into Hogwarts… er, you do know what we meant, right? (this is what happens when you replace caffeine with Chamomile. Yawn!).  

Why is Preliminary Screening Important?

Preliminary screening or pre-hiring methods for remote hiring have become essential in this age of fast-paced global economy, not only for employers but for candidates too. Just as you cannot judge a book by its cover, you can neither assess a candidate from their resume nor an employer by their website!

Preliminary screening exams, such as the ones offered by Equip, develop candidate persona forms with the ideal characteristics, traits, and skills for each job. Then, they test the aptitude and personality of the candidate with their set of cognitive and behavioral assessments, quizzes, coding challenges, and video interviews. 

These tests help recruiters and hiring managers to get a glimpse into the actual abilities of the candidate so they can compare it with the ideal persona and make accurate hiring decisions. Equip’s pre-screening tests also help candidates gauge if they can adapt to the company’s working environment. 

When both parties make informed decisions, it is a win-win situation. 

Also read: How Recruiters Conduct Preliminary Screening While Hiring​

Benefits of Preliminary Screening While Hiring

Evidence-Based decision

You can’t always go with your gut feeling and hire because the repercussions of a bad hire can become too much to stomach (pun unintended!). 

When you adopt a preliminary screening procedure using a structured platform like Equip, you automatically attract the right talent into the organization. If an applicant decides to attempt the screening assessment, it indicates an applicant’s interest in joining your organization. Also, a candidate will have greater confidence in your organization if they see that you have set up a process for hiring.

Improved Hiring Quality

Preliminary screening of candidates is a more reliable way of forecasting a prospective candidate’s business fit and job performance. Using pre-hiring platforms like Equip,  we can test candidates' emotional intelligence, aptitude, skill, personality, communication, and language fluency to better judge their proficiency. 

Evaluating Applicant’s Potential Accurately

Sometimes, candidates provide incorrect or misleading information about their skills during interviews in their enthusiasm to impress the recruiter. How can recruiters verify their skills? 

Conventional methods cannot help verify the information, but preliminary screening assessments can give us dependable and accurate results that are data-driven. After all, seeing is believing.

Diligent Background Screening

Companies can’t afford to make any mistakes in validating candidates during hiring if they want to avoid expensive lawsuits in the future. Conducting a thorough background screening of potential candidates is a necessity. 

Dependable preliminary screening eliminates the possibility of human error and also keeps recruiters at a strategic distance from the candidates.

Summing Up

If rummaging through mountains of applications to find the perfect candidate is not your cup of tea (or coffee or sparkling water), or

If you don’t want to lose sleep because you chose the wrong candidate, or 

If you’re on a mission to improve your company/startup’s quality of recruitment, or

If you want to move past ‘same-old, same-old,’

Get started with Preliminary Screening Tools for hiring

You’ll thank us later for having saved your time!