How To Shortlist The Best Candidates

Here are our top tips to help you narrow down your search process and identify your best candidates to proceed with.

Determine your criteria
What are the must haves? Think about experience, qualifications, personal attributes and attitude. Do they meet the job advert specification? These will be the minimum criteria for candidates that you interview. It is also important to remember at that point to not add to your criteria otherwise your applicants may no longer be applicable.

Look for transferable skills
…or different types of experience that might make your candidate more appealing, someone that would commit to your business and mould into it. If you only look at the candidates that tick your boxes, you may end up with the wrong fit or candidates that seem great on paper but don’t adapt as well to your work environment.

Create a scoring system
If you have a few candidates shortlisted, create a scoring system based on mandatory, essential and preferred skills. Score applicants against these and the candidate with the highest score will be your strongest.

Screen candidates first
Get to know your candidates sooner rather than later. Speaking to a candidate via a video or phone call first can help to determine if the candidate really has those skills that they have listed on their CV. When screening candidates look at similarities between candidates, having a diverse range of candidates can mean a stronger pool for interviews.

Give everyone a response
Unsuccessful candidates, let them know. You never know if you may need to contact them again for a future job vacancy they are more suited to.


Keep it simple with Adwarrior
Our level 3 applicant tracking system will allow you to view all applications that come through the advert we post. You are then able to download the CV and mark the candidates green or red using our top tips above!

Advertise a job vacancy today with Ad Warrior for 28 days for just £180 .