The Best Ways to Successfully Shortlist Candidates

Your recruitment advertising campaign seems to have gone well and applications are beginning to pour in. However, now it’s time to start whittling down the mountain of candidate data and CVs you are faced with.
Unfortunately this is a familiar and overwhelming situation for many recruiters, HR personnel and business owners. Although having a large candidate interest in your role is fantastic, physically finding the time in an already busy schedule to sort through all of the applications and assess the candidates can feel impossible.
Recruiting also goes beyond sorting through the applications. Communication with the candidates is fundamental and if they are not kept in the loop with their progression, a negative perception of your organisation can be created.
So, how can you manage your recruitment, shortlisting and candidate satisfaction?
Webrecruit Ireland has three ways to successfully manage these core aspects of your shortlisting process:

Targeted job adverts

The shortlisting process begins with a targeted recruitment advertising campaign.  In order to improve the quality of your applications, it is important that your job advert is focused and precise.
You should ensure that job descriptions and  specifications contain criteria that are essential and quantifiable for the role rather than simply idealistic for the position or “soft skills” such as “good team player” as this can be hard to shortlist via a CV or application. This will ensure that you are shortlisting the most relevant candidates for your talent pool.

Recruitment software to ease the burden

Recruitment software, such as an applicant tracking system (ATS), can be a great way to manage a high volume of applications. All organisations, no matter what their size, should always be looking at making their whole recruitment process more efficient and effective.
When a large amount of applications are coming straight into your inbox, it can leave room for human error. However with an ATS such as Webrecruit Ireland’s Fusion, all applications are made through one single portal and all information is stored together and can be accessed 24/7.
Within Fusion’s portal, you are enabled to split the incoming applicants into separate pots named “To be Reviewed”, “Rejected”, “Shortlisted” and you can also organise interview slots. This enables you to stay organised and keep your shortlist as concise as possible. Also, an added benefit of such ATS systems like Fusion is that automated emails will be sent out to the candidates by simply marking their applications as successful or unsuccessful. This initiative will keep the candidates informed regarding their application and enforce your employer brand.

Filtering CVs within set time frames

As previously mentioned, it can be frustrating when a portion of your candidate applications are not entirely relevant to the job role you are recruiting for. However, it is equally frustrating for the candidate when it takes weeks for them to be updated or, even worse, not updated at all.
We appreciate that when many organisations are recruiting there are a lot of other work pressures to manage. Your recruitment is like any other work project, it should not be neglected and you should set deadlines for completion. This gives you and your colleagues a timetable for delivery and allows the recruitment process to be monitored on an ongoing basis without a mass of CVs building up which ultimately becomes unmanageable.
Webrecruit Ireland also offers you a CV filtering process as part of our recruitment advertising strategy. Our team will sort through the CVs and compile the most relevant and suitable applications for your job role. These candidates can then be assessed and interviewed internally, if required.
This is a fantastic alternative if you want to have control of your recruitment but do not have time for the administration requirements that comes alongside this period.


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