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How to Shortlist Candidates

Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment are a Leading UK Sales Recruiter

Short two minute video, and transcript, on how to effectively shortlist candidates for selection and ensure that you do not lose potential talent through your shortlisting process

Shortlisting candidates is a really integral part of getting recruitment right. But so many businesses look at CVs and they make decisions based on a spelling mistake, the format of it, the picture of the person on the CV, other kind of gut feels. I've even known candidates being rejected because they don't support the right football team. How to do it effectively is as follows.

Quite often, you will get a massive response of applicants to your roles and shortlisting is a really fundamental integral part of getting the recruitment process right.

Many companies, when shortlisting, really don't go about it in the right why. They kind of go on the gut feel of that CV rather than having a structured, logical approach to shortlisting. So here's a quick exercise to help you get it right.

When you write your person spec, make a list of all of the skills, qualities, and attributes you're looking for your target candidate to have. Now mark them M for mandatory, E for Essential, and P, preferred, the icing on the cake, the nice to have. Score all of the attributes accordingly.

Now, M is the mandatory minimum requirement to be chosen for or selected for an interview. E is Essential, they will need to demonstrate at the interview to secure the role. And the Ps are the Preferred, the nice to haves.

So when we're going through the person's spec, mark them all out M, E, or P. And when we're shortlisting, go through the logical process of matching-- does the CV have the Ms? If they do, bring them in for that first interview.

So I hope that this exercise just provides a quick insight into how to shortlist for your business effectively.

 

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