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Candidate ScreeningHow to effectively screen candidates
Although it is the employer who makes the final hiring decision, thorough pre-screening of candidates by your recruiter (whether internal or external) is essential to reduce the risks and costs associated with declined job offers. Naturally, a recruiter can only add value to a business by presenting only those candidates who are most suited to the position - from a technical and a personal perspective - it saves everyone time and effort. But look deeper and you'll find that screening on technical issues alone is not at all efficient. Most IT Recruiters use keyword selection to do their initial screening. They will take a brief client requirement from an employer and then throw in the technical key words into their candidate database, which acts as primitive kind of search engine. The more times a key word or skill is found on a CV, the more relevant it thinks the result is. Chances are that your IT recruiter is not long out of his or her teens and has no idea whether the candidate is right for the job or not. Fact is, the CV contains 10 instances of the key word he was looking for and therefore, must be right for the job! He then sends the CV to the client, along with a few others. It's not necessarily the recruiter's fault. Technology has changed. CV's are electronic these days and advertising on the Internet for jobs is very inexpensive. Applications come in by the bucket load. You can't expect a busy recruiter to read all of the applications can you? That's the client's job! The buck stops with the client though. By insisting on some quality control at the stage where the recruiter calls and asks for details of the job vacancy, an employer can save himself an awful lot of time and trouble. All you have to do when you get the canvassing call is either say "no" or, if you do provide vacancy details, insist that:
IT Recruiters don't always play by the rules. They will SAY that they have pre-qualified a candidate's interest. They will SAY that a a candidate is keen to be interviewed. They will SAY that they have personall interviewed each candidate. The truth can often be very different. Most recruiters don't interview their candidates, because they know that unless they get the CV onto your desk immediately, then someone else will. Why waste time interviewing a candidate? If the client wants to interveiw, you can always say that the candidate has found something else... Screening candidates takes time. A good recruiter will take the time to do the job properly if he believes that the employer isn't simply providing details of the vacancy to every recruiter that calls. Look on ANY of the major job boards and you will often the same job being advertised several times by many different recruitment agencies. That spells trouble for the candidate and for you as the employer. Most job boards are automated and set up to make instant CV submissions and job applications to any vacancies containing their "key words". The candidates don't even know what jobs they are applying for anymore! Do you really expect to get highly motivated, interested people through the door? The best defence you have against unscrupulous IT recruiters who don't do the job properly is simply to say, "no thanks". That tip alone will save you countless hours on the phone or reading masses of CV's. You should be feeling better already! ©Hollywood Internet Ltd - Candidate Screening |
