Candidate screening guide: How to evaluate applicants before the interview

If you’re a recruiter, filtering applicants might feel like your full-time job. And while it’s an important part of your role, it shouldn’t take up all of your time.

Establishing strong candidate screening methods is key to ensuring that you’re not wasting time reviewing applications that don’t fit the job description. What’s more, it gives you the chance to identify the strongest candidates early on.

Here’s a candidate screening guide that will help you discern which talent is truly worth talking to. 

What is candidate screening?

Candidate screening is the process that sits between the initial application and a formal interview. It generally comprises two phases:

• Pre-screening: Candidates submit their resume/CV and cover letter and, if the application requires it, a questionnaire. 
• In-depth screening: Initial assessments or tests serve as deeper screening methods, whether that’s a test assignment or a phone interview. 

Recruiters or hiring teams generally assess candidates against a set of requirements for the role, making sure they meet the minimum requirements. From there, hiring managers conduct in-depth interviews to find which candidate has the background required for the role.  

Screening like this ensures that only qualified candidates make it to the interview stage, thanks to both their work experience and potential culture fit. 

Why does candidate screening matter?

Hiring managers only want to meet the highest quality candidates. With effective candidate screening, teams save time by interviewing only the applicants who truly fit the role. 

Effective candidate screening methods have several benefits:

• Lower costs: Cut the labor hours lost to interviewing unqualified candidates. With effective filtering methods, recruiters only speak to the best applicants. 
• Stronger selection: An organized pipeline enables recruiters to screen applicants carefully rather than skim hundreds at once. Careful screening is what surfaces the strongest candidates, and hiring managers can then interview a vetted shortlist instead of sorting through every application themselves.
• Faster hiring processes: More efficient screening means a faster-moving candidate pipeline. When you reduce time-to-hire, you fill roles faster, reducing productivity losses due to vacancies.
• Less bias: If you have a structured interview process designed to ask consistent questions and evaluate candidates fairly, you’re less likely to make biased, gut-based hiring decisions.

Common candidate screening challenges

Like any workflow, hiccups in candidate screening processes can slow work or lead to poor outcomes. Here are a few common challenges to watch out for.

• Manual workflows: Taking interview notes by hand and relying on person-to-person communication to discuss candidates creates room for error. And missing information generates incomplete pictures of candidates’ qualifications. Automated note-taking and centralized single sources of truth (like applicant tracking systems) ensure every member of the hiring team is working with the same information.  
• Unclear criteria: If different recruiters work from distinct criteria, the outputs from screening interviews won’t be comparable. Agree on a written scorecard up front and the specific competencies to assess them. This way, everyone evaluates candidates against the same benchmark.
• Inconsistent reviewers: Weak criteria and poor documentation might lead to inconsistency in reviews, meaning an unqualified candidate slips through—or worse, a qualified candidate is rejected because of a miscommunication. Consistent questions lead to better alignment, with less bias and better compliance with antidiscrimination or equal employment laws. 

Methods of screening candidates

There are several methods of screening candidates, and teams often use these techniques together. Here’s more.

Application and profile-based methods

The most basic screening methods include reviewing materials provided by the candidate themselves, like resumes and cover letters, questionnaires, and professional website reviews (including LinkedIn). For some industries, reviewing portfolios or writing samples also helps narrow down job applicants into a shortlist. 

These methods are a great starting point because they let you filter out candidates who don’t have the experience you’re seeking. Review resumes for major keywords missing or red flags, like employment gaps or signs of job hopping. These omissions can be good enough reason to not move a candidate to the next step. On the flip side, resumes also reveal unique strengths that set candidates apart from the crowd.

Skill assessment methods

Aptitude assessments are another strong way to assess a candidate’s competencies. Pre-employment tests, case studies, take-home assignments, coding challenges, or situational judgement tests all give valuable insight into how a candidate solves problems. Skill assessments can be particularly useful in technical fields, where a candidate's ability to write a certain type of code or solve a real-world problem is an essential prerequisite for securing the role.

Automated filtering and scoring

Automated recruiting tools, like ATS filters and AI fit-scoring tools, help surface the most qualified candidates. These features enable recruiters to scale screening without needing to manually review dozens of resumes or assessments each day. 

How to screen an applicant

So how do you actually determine which candidates are worth interviewing? Follow the steps outlined below to make sure you’re passing qualified candidates along to the hiring team.

1. Set criteria and pre-screen applications

Start by clearly outlining what criteria you need an applicant to meet. Work with hiring managers and fellow human resource team members to determine must-haves. You can then cross-check this criteria against resumes and professional profiles to find potential fits.

It’s also smart to create an application questionnaire to help filter out candidates that aren’t a match for the position. Asking about years of experience, familiarity with tools, and salary expectations can also enable you to quickly sift out candidates whose background or expectations don’t align with the role.  

2. Run the initial screening conversation

Conduct a phone screen to verify the candidate's experience, motivation, and availability. Through basic screening questions, you can also gauge whether the person is a strong communicator.

While evaluating the quality of the candidates’ answers, assess how they might fit in with the team. Strong cultural fits should be clear from the beginning of the process.  

3. Validate skills and finalize the shortlist

Reserve part of the phone screen to discuss role-specific requirements that ensure this candidate is worth advancing to the interview stage. If they can’t speak to their specific experience and how it makes them qualified for the role, they aren’t likely a good fit. 

4. Conduct formal interviews

Once you’ve put together a shortlist, set up a formal one-on-one or panel interview. If your working hours don’t overlap with the candidates, you can set up asynchronous video interviews, in which applicants record a video answering several questions, giving deeper context to their application. 

Interviews generally move through a series of behavioral questions that test a candidate’s communication skills. Can they clearly communicate problem-solving skills? Do they have strong answers that indicate good situational judgment, even if they’ve never experienced that scenario? Do they maintain professionalism, even when speaking about former employers? 

Strengthen your pipeline with Juicebox

Sifting through applicants is part of hiring. But with Juicebox, it doesn’t have to be all of hiring. That’s because Juicebox ensures your pipeline is full of only the most relevant candidates.

Juicebox is an AI-native sourcing and people search platform that allows recruiters to search over 800 million profiles from over 30 data sources in natural language, getting to a short list fast. Juicebox also pairs with everyday tools like ATSs and CRMs, pushing information on qualified candidates straight into your centralized workspaces.

Start a free Juicebox search and find the best talent out there. 

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between pre-screening and screening?

Pre-screening considers initial filters, like a resume or applicant questionnaire, helping hiring teams determine which candidates are a basic fit for the role. Screening is the entire interview process, from pre-screen to eventual hire, and involves deeper evaluation of applicants.

What should a candidate screening process include?

A clear job description and understanding of what the right hire would look like are the first step to screening. Then, hiring teams should review resumes and questionnaires to find initial fits. From there, a series of interviews and assessments—whether it’s a quick phone interview or a take-home exercise—help determine if a candidate is worth hiring. 

How do you screen candidates without bias?

Using the same criteria and interview questions helps remove bias from the screening process. Sticking to interviews structured around the same questions and documenting all conversations emphasizes a candidate’s skills and qualifications, not their personal attributes. 

How do I keep enough qualified candidates entering the screening stage?

Consistent sourcing and outreach are key to a full pipeline, and Juicebox can automate that sourcing outreach for you, keeping qualified active and passive candidates in your pipeline.