Written by Say your first job ad brings in 60 applications by Wednesday, and you still have a business to run. Calling everyone takes days. Calling only the few with the best-looking resumes favors people who are good at writing resumes.
Before booking any calls, you can check the must-haves, ask every applicant the same short set of questions and compare their answers against criteria you wrote down first. It works for a part-time shop assistant as well as for a bookkeeper, and it leaves you with a shortlist you can explain.
Write down what the job needs before you read anything
Before you open a single application, write two short lists.
The first is the must-haves: things that rule someone in or out no matter how good they are otherwise. Legally allowed to work in the U.S., available for Saturday shifts, holds a driver’s license, can start by the 1st. Keep this list short and make sure every item is a real requirement of the job.
The second is the three or four things that would separate a great hire from an average one. For a front-desk role, that might be “stays calm with an upset customer,” “keeps the schedule straight,” and “explains things clearly on the phone.”
Do this first. Without written criteria, an early strong applicant can become the standard you judge everyone else against, instead of the job itself.
Put the must-haves in the application
Turn your must-haves into a few yes-or-no questions on the application or in your first reply. “Are you available to work Saturdays?” takes an applicant ten seconds to answer and saves both of you a phone call that ends at minute two.
Stick to questions about the job. Leave out age, marital status, children, health, religion, national origin and past pay. Federal and state laws restrict many of these questions, and none of them tell you whether someone can do the job. If the job has a physical requirement, ask whether the person can meet it “with or without a reasonable accommodation” rather than asking about their health.
Ask everyone the same three questions
For everyone who clears the must-haves, ask the same three questions and let them answer in their own time: by email, a short form, a voice message or a recorded video. Add a question only if its answer could change whom you call. Keep the whole thing short enough to fit around an existing job.
For a role that deals with customers, try these three:
- Why this job? Ask “What made you apply for this role?” and look for references to the work described in your ad.
- Something they’ve done. “Tell me about the job you’ve had that’s closest to this one. What did a normal week look like?”
- How they handle people or problems. “Tell me about a time you dealt with an upset customer. What did you do?”
Ask about things they have done, not what they would do. If an answer stays general, ask what the applicant actually did and how it ended.
Tell applicants how long it should take, roughly ten minutes, and give them a deadline about a week out. Send a reminder a day or two before it.
Decide what a good answer sounds like before reading any
For each question, write one or two lines on what a strong answer includes. For the upset customer question: “Describes one real complaint from start to finish, and says how it ended for the customer.”
For the upset-customer question, use this 1–5 scale:
- 1: doesn’t address it, or too short to tell
- 3: explains what they’d do, without a real example
- 5: a real example of what they did, and how it turned out
Next to each score, copy the sentence that earned it. That keeps your scoring honest, and if a business partner or spouse helps you decide, they can see why you scored someone the way you did.
Read everyone’s answer to question one, then everyone’s answer to question two. Comparing answers to the same question makes them easier to judge and may help keep one strong reply from influencing the other scores.
Call the top few, and tell everyone else
Sort by score and call the top three to five for a real conversation. Before you rule anyone out, read their whole answer, not just your notes. If a short answer leaves you without enough to judge, use a two-minute call to ask for more detail before ruling the person out.
Then tell everyone where they stand, including the people you aren’t moving forward. A one-line “thanks, we’ve gone with other candidates” is enough. In a small town or a tight industry, the people you turn down are also your customers and neighbors.
What it costs you
Allow an hour or so to write the lists and questions. After that, budget time to read or watch each answer and score it, which you can do when your schedule allows instead of fitting calls around your day. Thirty 20-minute phone screens come to 10 hours, before any time spent scheduling them.
Asking everyone the same questions also gives you a fair basis for comparing answers, and your notes show why you chose someone. Some applicants may still need another way to answer or a bit more time, so say in your first message that they can ask. For a business hiring its first employee, that’s a good habit to start with.
About the author: Super Lede is one of the founders of AnswerReel, which makes one-way video interview software for small teams, including free video interview software for occasional hiring.