A bad hire impacts an organisation in two ways; it increases the cost of talent acquisition and the opportunity cost of getting the right candidate. A survey conducted by CareerBuilder indicates, about 75% of employers admit to hiring the wrong candidate at some point in their careers. The same study states that every two out of three candidates accepted the job that wasn’t the right fit for them and left within six months of joining.
Therefore, when the tech recruitment landscape faces one of the fiercest competitions ever, you are left with less space to make bad hiring decisions. Industries worldwide keep looking for new things, new processes, but sometimes they do away with existing methods too early; candidate screening is undoubtedly one of them.
Candidate screening allows you to take evidence-based calls without any biases, the sole reason the screening methods are still relevant.
Four Proven Candidate Screening Methods to Make Tech Recruitment Easier
Companies are now dealing with large volume applications using intelligent tools like an Application Tracking System (ATS), that’s more rejection than selection. However, to select better, you still need manual candidate screening at some point, so let’s revisit existing screening methods and understand how they can quality-proof your tech recruitment process.
1. Resume screening
It’s a smart move to use the ATS to weed out candidates that do not fulfil the required eligibility criteria or submit generic resumes – because it saves you precious human resources.
At the same time, once you can narrow down the funnel, you will need conventional human intervention to skim through a candidate’s resumes.
This manual step is essential because candidate resumes give you priceless insight into their thinking – what is important to them, how they look at their own experiences, and how they think those experiences can benefit their potential role.
Therefore, it’s crucial for HR professionals to manually look at resumes to get better insights into candidates’ minds and attitudes.
Recommended: Five Crucial Application Tracking System Features To Streamline Talent Acquisition
2. Skill testing
As a tech recruiter, you want to assess your potential employees as comprehensively as possible. You want to gauge their ability to assimilate into your company culture, their ability to take feedback constructively, and many other variables on the same lines.
Still, the variable you care about most is their potential to do the job they are applying for in your organisation.
However, you cannot work out technical expertise from a candidate’s resume. That’s when skill-testing comes into the game; employers around the globe are trusting pre-employment tests to determine if the candidate is the right fit for the job.
For instance, 76% of organisations with more than 100 employees use tests for external hiring – Harvard Business Review
Recommended: Qualities your Software Engineering Team Must Have
3. Phone screening
When video communication was not as mainstream as it is today, phone screening was the primary medium of candidate screening before going ahead with a formal interview.
It’s relevant to this day because you get to learn about a prospect without hampering their daily routine. Candidates don’t have to take time off from their jobs just to initiate a conversation with you.
Thus, when you start with a phone screening, you also improve the candidate experience.
4. Online screening
If you want deep insight into a candidate’s outlook without breaching any privacy law, a simple google search is enough. The search will throw up enough data to form a perspective about your potential employee. Checking online is the most straightforward candidate screening method you can employ, which offers excellent returns.
According to a report, as many as 98% of employers go online for a background search. It’s not a snooping exercise; many candidates have websites, public portfolios, and articles that offer you quality insights. Although, all of it cannot tell you whether a prospect can code. Still, you get a fair amount of idea what a candidate is after, and you can consider it before making the final hiring call.
How Can CodeQuotient Better Your Tech Recruitment Process?
CodeQuotient offers a three-month mentorship program to students who want to further their careers in software development.
The program starts with candidate screening. CodeQuotient aims at the top 10% of candidates who apply. Then, we take these aspirational students willing to learn new technologies into our mentorship program, where they learn in-demand technologies like node.js, react.js, python, java, etc. Read more about our tech stacks here.
Then, at the final stage, our students develop at least two industry-ready applications using the aforementioned technologies.
Therefore, CodeQuotient works as a bridge between tech companies and tech talent.
Hire industry-ready developers with CodeQuotient and make your tech recruitment process more straightforward.
Drop us your thoughts and queries at info@codequitient.com. Also, check our website to read more about our happy hiring partners and processes.
