How Can a Candidate Screening Improve Your Recruitment Strategy?

Hiring the right workforce is critical to any company’s growth. Quality talents boost organizational output and move the business to where it should be.

However, 60% of bad hires negatively impact team performance, and 39% of businesses report productivity decline from unqualified employees. Also, bad hires cause 80% of turnover.

However, as critical as hiring quality staff is for businesses, many employers struggle with developing an effective recruitment strategy. For example, 76% of recruiters report that attracting the right candidate is one of their greatest challenges.

Although often neglected, conducting a thorough candidate screening exercise can improve a recruitment strategy, placing organizations in the best position to attract and retain qualified employees. It enables businesses to assess candidates’ abilities and identify the best candidate for the job.

So, if you are here and unsure if the candidate screening process is essential for your recruitment strategy, you are in the right place. This article provides the top five reasons why a candidate screening process is a must for developing a recruitment plan that pulls the most suitable candidates for your business.

Let’s get into it.

What is candidate screening? 

Candidate screening means evaluating job applications to identify which applicants best fit the job description. It involves reviewing resumes, portfolios, cover letters, etc., by examining applicants’ experience, skill sets, and qualifications to find the most qualified candidates. Essentially, hiring managers conduct candidate screening to pick the applicants’ profiles that best match the job description. 

Although candidate screening is considered the most time-consuming activity in the recruitment process, it’s highly critical to the success of every hiring experience. Without a practical candidate screening process, employers may hire unqualified candidates, costing them valuable time and expenses; the average cost of a bad hire ranges from $17,000 to $240, 000. 

How candidate screening enhances your recruitment strategy

1. Candidate screening helps in recruiting expert technical writers

You need technical writers to convey your products’ offerings to your customers. They also work with the developers for internal documentation and collaborate with the sales team to write tutorials, whitepapers,  etc.

You must hire qualified technical writers to clarify and simplify your messaging to users and produce accurate internal documentation. However, you can’t do this by skipping through applications and randomly picking anyone; you need a candidate screening exercise.

Introducing applicant assessment into your recruitment strategy will help you review their skills, experience, and qualifications to choose the best technical writers for your company.

However, it’s challenging to identify how experienced a writer is by reviewing their resumes and portfolios. So, it’s best to take the candidate screening a notch higher by introducing pre-employment assessment platforms to hire the best technical writers with candidate screening. 

Pre-employment screening tools automate your assessment exercise. They also provide accurate results to validate a candidate’s skills and experience. This way, you can be sure to get the most qualified technical writers on your team.

2. It increases the quality of hire

A successful applicant screening isn’t limited to hiring the best writers for your technical team; it allows you to recruit great talents across all teams.

Reviewing candidates’ applications gives you an in-depth insight into what applicants can do, revealing if they are the best fit for your company. You will find their skill-set, experience, and certifications, allowing you to select the right talents.

So, if you want to avoid bad hires and ensure every candidate joining your team is qualified, never skip an applicant screening process in your recruitment strategy. Instead, evaluate every candidate’s resume, certifications, and portfolio and pick the most suitable for the role. By doing this, you improve your hiring quality and recruit only those who will move your business forward.

3. It promotes efficiency

Applicant screening increases your chances of hiring right, minimizing wasted time on bad hires. Also, rather than interviewing several applicants, an applicant screening process eliminates unqualified candidates, allowing you to channel your energy toward qualified applicants only.

A candidate screening process improves your recruitment strategy’s efficiency. It reveals applicants’ experience, skills, and qualifications, revealing their suitability for a role before the interview. This way, only suitable candidates make it to the interview stage, eliminating wasted time on bad hires.

Therefore, you must adopt a screening exercise to reduce the hiring time and improve efficiency. The recruitment process will be less rigorous and time-consuming for the recruitment team, allowing them to produce faster results.

4. Candidate screening increases your productivity and output

The best hires generate the highest output for your business. They have the right skills and experience to deliver excellent results and increase your turnaround as a company.

However, the way to harness these benefits is by implementing a candidate screening exercise into your recruitment strategy. It helps you identify and hire quality talents to produce the best business outcome.

Also, hiring the right talents positively impacts the teams, allowing them to collectively deliver outstanding results that boost organizational growth.

Recruiting qualified talents through candidate screening prevents rehiring. Employers won’t need to replace newly recruited staff due to bad hires, so nothing hampers the organization’s workflow and productivity. Therefore, a critical step to enhancing organizational productivity is to include a candidate screening process in the recruitment plan.

5. It Increases retention

Every recruitment strategy aims to retain employees, and the way to do that is to conduct candidate screening. First, it helps you recruit the best talents with the right attitude to work.

Their experience provides insight into how they operate, helping you select candidates with suitable work cultures. This staff category can cope with job responsibilities and demands, preventing turnover.

Additionally, applicant screening lets you hire candidates with similar values as your business. By reviewing their application, including their cover letter and resumes, you’ll understand what they stand for and the values they live by. You can also compare the type of companies they’ve worked for to discover their values and ideologies.

By examining their beliefs and principles, you’ll know the applicants with the same values as the company. Since these candidates share similar beliefs to the brand, they will likely work long-term because they will find the work culture suitable.

A recruitment strategy with an applicant screening process increases employee retention by facilitating the recruitment of the best hires. It also ensures that recruited employees’ values align with the company for a positive and committed work experience.

Factors to keep in mind when conducting candidate screening

A candidate screening is only effective when conducted the right way. Below are critical factors to consider for a successful candidate assessment.

1. Review all resumes

Evaluating resumes can be daunting, but it’s critical to an effective candidate screening. So, don’t skim over the resumes; review them following these steps:

• First, screen them by considering the minimum qualification required for the role as stated in the job description.
• Review based on the most suitable qualifications that makes a candidate a better choice for the job.
• Evaluate the resume based on the basic and most suitable qualifications for a role.

Shortlist resumes based on these requirements to pick qualified candidates for the interview. You can classify the resumes based on applicants with basic qualifications, preferred qualifications, and candidates with both qualifications. This helps you decide on the most suitable applicants for the roles available in your organization.

2. Request cover letters

The candidate screening process aims to help you know your applicants and see if they have what it takes to execute their responsibilities. However, while resumes showcase their skills and certifications, a cover letter gives deeper insight into who they are and why they are applying for the job.

In a cover letter, candidates reveal what excites them about the roles and why they think they are qualified. They also highlight their values and provide an overview of what it is like to work with them. 

This detailed information gives you a better understanding of an applicant’s identity and whether you should hire them. So, request cover letters in the job description and review them during the application process to make the best hiring decision.

3. Request a skill test

While resumes, cover letters, and portfolios say much about what an applicant can do, conducting a skill test is a practical way to validate their claims. So, conduct tests that showcase their expertise in the areas relevant to their roles like excel skills tests. Run quick assessments remotely or in person and review the feedback to know if an applicant has hands-on experience with the job’s responsibilities.

Improve your recruitment strategy with an excellent candidate screening

Candidate screening is vital to any recruitment strategy that aims to hire and retain quality talent. It enhances productivity and increases the chances of recruiting experienced technical writers and members of other teams. It also minimizes wasted time and increases retention. This article discussed the top five ways a candidate screening increases the recruitment plan and how to consider it when executing candidate screening.