Working in HR or Talent Acquisition, it can be tough getting the most suitable candidates in front of your hiring managers when you have candidates to call, review, process, and more! Screening Questions in an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help.

Leveraging your job advertisements and Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to support your hiring endeavours is important – allowing you to get the best candidates quickly, further enabling you time to spend on quality candidates over a quantity of them.

So where to start? How do you get the most suitable candidates in front of your hiring managers? Read on to find out more:

Proof of Right to Work

Yes, this might not seem the obvious place to start but making your stance clear regarding the need for Proof of Right to Work from your candidates is very important. Alongside this, your organisation’s stance on whether you could and would offer sponsorship is key.

A simple question such as ‘Do you have the legal right to reside permanently in the country where this role is based?’ can help you auto-reject candidates who do not possess this, and if your organisation is not willing to provide sponsorship.

You can also use your job advertisements to help make your organisation’s stance clear. For example, ‘We will only be able to consider candidates who can evidence Proof of Right to Work’ or ‘We will consider sponsoring suitable applicants on a case-by-case basis’ sets expectations for candidates but can also dissuade applicants who otherwise may not be able to join your organisation.

Screening Questions

Screening questions are an excellent tool to filter out candidates who may not be suitable by the answers they provide – they can also be a great way to match up whether what they say on their CV is demonstrable in their answers.

These ‘light-touch interview questions’ where candidates’ can evidence their knowledge and suitability for a role and your organisation are a great tool. But this doesn’t have to be all free-text answers – for example, you may want to know whether for, let’s say, a driving role a candidate has a valid and full driving licence. Using a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question set-up can help you instantly filter out candidates who may not be suitable, saving you time and effort.

Incomplete Applications

Let’s be honest, application processes are best when they are slick, quick, and user-friendly. Yet you may still have Incomplete Applications – so should you get put application in front of your hiring manager?

The first thing to do is have a system that can automatically chase candidates who have incomplete applications. Alternatively, you can chase them to try and get them to complete their applications.

After these actions, does an incomplete application evidence a vested and interested candidate? The likelihood is no. Having a system that can show who has and has not completed their applications can make all the difference to help you choose who best to put in front of a hiring manager and save yourself the fear of dropouts!

The good news? Webrecruit ATS is a system that offers all of this and more! Our ATS helps thousands recruit with ease, allowing them to spend more time on creating quality candidate and hiring manager experiences, every day.