You’ve posted the perfect job ad for your highly-desirable vacancy, and the applications are rolling in. Maybe it seems like there are too many applications to reasonably manage – something many recruiters face at some point in their careers.
Now it’s time to narrow down the list. Poor candidate selection can have detrimental impacts on your charity, affecting productivity and draining valuable money and resources. But the process of candidate shortlisting can feel daunting and time-consuming, especially considering that it needs to happen at several stages. Whether you’re reviewing applications, screening candidates, or have just finished interviews, you’ll need to decide who should move onto the next stage.
Shortlisting the right candidate can be a tricky task, but putting in the time and effort will have great benefits for your advertised role and organisation. So how do you shortlist job applicants, and who should ultimately be invited for an interview? Here are our six steps for candidate shortlisting to lead you to the perfect hire.
Remove unconscious bias from the process
In this guide, we’ll detail our six steps for candidate shortlisting to lead you to the perfect hire. But first, let’s look at an important first step in the hiring process: removing unconscious bias to make sure the shortlisting process is approached with fairness and equality.
All of us have some degree of unconscious bias – even if we don’t think we do. This can take the form of discrimination based on ethnicity, race, age, gender and other factors. Biases lead us to make less-than-perfect hiring decisions, allowing some top candidates to fall through the cracks.
People with ‘ethnic-sounding’ names are less likely to be invited for an interview, compared to those with white British-sounding names. This is unacceptable, and makes it all the more important to make your recruitment process anonymous and improve diversity.
When you post a job using CharityJob Apply, you can anonymise the applications you receive. Our platform will remove key personal details, such as names and email addresses, until you make first contact with the applicant.
1. Set out clear shortlisting criteria
Before you even start to accept applications, separate the skills and requirements you’re looking for into two groups: essential and desirable. Your job ad should be inclusive, making it clear you’re willing to consider people who don’t have all the skills if they can show a clear ability or desire to grow.
These clear distinctions will help you in the first step of shortlisting candidates. You can start to take candidates out of the running based on whether they possess the required, non-negotiable skills that you outlined.
But consider if what you’re asking for is really necessary. Maybe someone doesn’t have a degree, but has proven their skills in other ways. Rather than focusing on where a person went to university and which degree they have, you could put more weight on how they’ve shown demonstrable growth in their career.
The criteria that matters for your vacancy will depend on the type of role, organisational needs and candidate requirements. This could include:
Skills and expertise – this could be soft skills like teamwork or expert knowledge in cybersecurity.
Competencies and capabilities – this could include ability to use specific computer software or working proactively.
Education and qualifications – such as degrees, certifications and training.
Work experience – either paid or unpaid experience working in particular sectors or roles relevant to your vacancy.
2. Create a candidate scorecard or scale
Use the job description and the shortlisting criteria to create a scoring scale or card. Make sure the scorecard isn’t too lengthy, otherwise it’ll become time-consuming and counterproductive to the shortlisting process. Aim for no more than 10 criteria, depending on the needs of the role.
For example, you could score candidates between one and three for each essential skill or experience level:
1 means they partially meet the criteria
2 means they fully meet the criteria
3 means they exceed it
The scorecard can be used to rate a prospective candidate against each criterion to quickly assess each person. Think of it like a checklist focused only on the things that matter for the role. This approach prevents you from unintentionally benchmarking candidates against each other or rejecting people based on bias.
3. Use screening questions to filter candidates
Screening questions allow you to assess candidates’ responses against the skills and experience required of the role. In just a few questions, you can identify potential candidates who you may have missed out on if you were to only look at their CV. If you post a role with us using CharityJob Apply you can get free access to the screening questions feature in our ATS.
Screening questions can help to draw out relevant skills and information from the candidate which may have otherwise been excluded from their CV or cover letter. An example of a screening question for an admin or data role could be, ‘Do you have experience using Excel?’.
You could also include a brief task-based question to get a better idea of their working style and thought processes in a realistic scenario. For example, ‘How would you organise a large dataset to share with the rest of your team?’. This gives candidates a quick and easy chance to sell themselves. However, it might be more suitable to wait until later in the process to ask candidates to complete longer tasks to avoid deterring them from applying.
4. Narrow down your list of applications
When you’ve been inundated with applications, it’s hard to know where to start and how to review them.
The candidate scorecard can be used at various stages throughout the recruitment process, including when you’re looking through applications. Have the scorecard alongside you when reading CVs, cover letters and responses to screening questions, and note down a score for each criterion as you go. This will allow you to quickly reject any applicants that don’t meet your essential criteria so you can focus on more qualified candidates.
If you find yourself with more high scoring candidates than expected or required for the next stage, you’ll need to find other reasons to rule people out – as long as this isn’t related to a protected characteristic.
It can be helpful to try and review applications as they come in, perhaps checking once a day if possible, to keep on top of the ever-growing list. If you anticipate a vacancy bringing in a particularly high volume of applications, consider a shorter advertising timeframe to keep the number manageable.
5. Have a diverse interview panel
Reduce bias when shortlisting candidates at the interview stage by including a diverse selection of people on the interview panel. Having diverse representation and different perspectives will help reduce bias, as the shortlisting decision won’t be based on one person’s subjective interpretation.
Following the interviews, each member of the panel should review the applicants individually before discussing and combining scores. Independent reviews will help form a more objective judgement of the candidate, as you’re less likely to influence each other and more likely to select the best talent out of a pool of candidates.
You could also provide hiring managers with regular training and refreshers on shortlisting candidates to make sure they’re kept up to date on the best methods and practices for fair interviews.
6. Be sure to let candidates know your decision either way
Take the time to respond to candidates directly if their application was unsuccessful at any stage of the recruitment process. A simple templated email is sufficient for those in the early stages, but if they’ve been through one or more interviews it’s best practice to give them feedback on why they weren’t selected for the role. The latter should ideally be done over the phone out of respect and sensitivity.
A survey we conducted revealed an incredible 79% of applicants were less likely to apply for a role with an organisation that hadn’t responded to them in the past. This statistic demonstrates how important it is for charities to respond to candidates so they feel informed about their job application process.
Some communications will require more effort than others, but responses will have long-term positive impacts on your candidate attraction. Responding to shortlisted candidates in a reasonable timeframe means you can fairly and effectively recruit the best person to fill your role.
Being professional and honest will leave a lasting positive impression on the candidate. Applicants who’ve had a good experience with you will be more inclined to recommend you to their network or to apply for other relevant positions in the future.
Our #GetBackToMe campaign encourages recruiters to always get back to candidates, no matter what stage their application gets to.
Bonus tips for effective candidate shortlisting
We know there are many complexities and challenges involved with finding the ideal person for your job from a pool of brilliant candidates. Check out these five extra tips to improve your shortlisting process and tackle those challenges with confidence.
Use an Applicant Tracking System – an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a great way to process large quantities of applications and manage candidates through the recruitment process from application to onboarding.
Decide how many candidates to interview – as much as we’d like to interview every possible candidate, the hiring team only has a finite amount of time available. Knowing how many interviews can realistically be held will guide the number of applicants you can progress to the next stage.
Use psychometric testing– these automated and structured tests assess candidates against key skills and competencies, such as verbal reasoning tests and personality assessments, to form a more rounded view of a candidate. Psychometric testing should be done at later stages of the recruitment process, such as just before an interview.
Fill skill gaps – if you have a great number of fantastic candidates and are struggling to narrow them down, look out for any unique areas of expertise they have that can help reduce skills shortages in your organisation.
Speed up processes – technology can be used to help you work through shortlisting quicker. For example, although AI tools should never replace your human approach to shortlisting candidates, they could be used for some of the repetitive or time-consuming tasks like organising scorecards or scheduling interviews.
Make shortlisting candidates a breeze with CharityJob’s ATS
CharityJob’s ATS allows you to quickly screen applicants with screening questions, easily communicate with candidates with bulk email templates, evaluate applications collaboratively and – perhaps most importantly – help remove unconscious bias from your process with anonymous recruitment.
Post a job with CharityJob Apply and get free access to our end-to-end recruiter platform, and showcase your job vacancy in a way that draws in the best talent.
We offer four job ad packages to suit your needs and budget. Choosing the right package is important, as it dictates the pool size, type, and quality of the candidates your ad will reach.
If you’re not sure which is right for your organisation, contact us for personalised advice. Give us a call on 020 8939 8430, or email us on info@charityjob.co.uk
This post was originally published in 2021 and has been updated to ensure relevance and to reflect the current recruitment experience.
