The selection process
The selection process always starts with a job opening. This job opening
should have a clearly defined function profile that includes criteria like
minimum years of work experience, educational background, and being
proficient in certain skills.
Once this job opening is published and advertised, candidates flow in –
hopefully! This is where the selection funnel starts. The funnel consists of
seven stages.
1. Application
2. Screening & pre-selection
3. Interview
4. Assessment
5. References and background check
6. Decision
7. Job offer & contract
Let’s go over these stages one by one.
The 7 stages of the selection
process
1. Application
After the job opening has been posted, candidates can apply. The amount of
people applying depends on the company, the specific function, and the availability
of work and workers.
2. Screening & pre-selection
The second step is the initial screening of candidates. This can happen in multiple
ways.
Resume screening. The most commonly known technique is resume or CV
screening. Resume screening helps to assess if candidates comply with the
criteria needed for the job. If you require 5+ years of work experience and
you see that a college graduate applied, you can easily disqualify this
person. Thankfully, there are great tools available that can do the resume
screening for you, ranging from built-in resume screening tools that are
part of an ATS to resume screeners that use artificial intelligence to predict
the quality of hire.
Phone screening/ chatbot. After the resume screening, often a phone screening
happens. This helps to align expectations between the candidate and employer.
The recruiter can ask the questions they had after screening the candidate’s
resume. In addition, the recruiter can walk through a checklist that may
include topics like pay expectations, full time or flexible commitment,
starting date, and other potential deal-breakers. Since this is a fairly
standard procedure, having a chatbot ask these questions is also an option.
3. Interview
The third step in the funnel is the best known and most visible of them all: the job
interview. The job interview involves the candidate being interviewed by their direct
manager or the recruiter to assess how well-suited they are for the job.
The interview offers some insight into a person’s verbal fluency and
sociability. It also provides the opportunity to ask the candidate questions
related to the job and it presents the opportunity to sell the job to the
candidate.
4. Assessment
We already briefly discussed assessments in the second step. Where the pre-
selection, or screening, is used to roughly weed out the least suitable candidates,
the full assessment usually is more accurate (although pre-employment
assessments can be very accurate too nowadays). When used well it is a highly
accurate and reliable tool to select the best candidates.
Good assessments are either a General Mental Ability (GMA) test (also known
as an IQ test) or testing the employee’s personality using a Five-Factor Model
of Personality. Higher IQ is associated with faster learning and higher top
performance. This means that for high IQ candidates the Time to Optimum
Productivity is lower and candidates are likely to perform better.
When it comes to personality, more conscientious candidates perform better
in their job. Candidates who score high in conscientiousness are often
described as hard-working, dutiful, achievement-oriented, and detail-
oriented. The literature shows that one’s level of conscientiousness
influences around 10% of one’s job performance.
Other assessments include work sample tests, integrity tests, and job
knowledge tests. Literature shows that work sample tests are especially
reliable. A best practice is, therefore, to have candidates do a case study or
solve a real problem during their interview. The quality of a candidate’s work
is usually easy to compare with the other applicants, adding an important
data point to the final decision.
Assessments and interviews are sometimes switched around. A full
assessment is usually expensive but it will save considerable time
interviewing candidates who are potentially unsuited for the role.
A good selection process helps you find the right candidates.
5. References and background check
In this stage, you have reduced the long list of candidates to a shortlist of one
to three candidates. An essential step is the reference check.
Reference checks are a way to confirm your perception of the candidate. Ask
the candidate to give you references and follow up on these. If during the
interview you have doubts about a certain competency or skill, the reference
check is an excellent way to gather more information from different
perspectives.
6. Decision
The next step is making the decision and choosing the candidate with the greatest
future potential for the organization. Sometimes this means picking someone less
qualified at the moment – but who is committed to growing and staying with the
organization longer.
The decision is best made based on a data-driven approach. In practice, this
means pre-defined criteria on which each candidate is rated during the
selection process. The best candidate is then chosen and given an offer.
Hiring decisions ideally are data-driven but
ultimately made by humans.
7. Job offer & contract
After the company has made the decision, the selection process isn’t over. The
candidate still needs to accept the offer.
At this point, the organization should have all the information that will make the
candidate say yes. This has been retrieved during the phone screening and job
interview.
The offer is then made to the candidate. If the offer is accepted a contract is drawn
and signed. Only when the employment contract is signed by all parties, will the
selection process be completed.
Conclusion
Selecting and hiring top candidates is key to the long-term viability of any
organization. Having a strong selection process helps to build a competitive
advantage for the organization. For that reason, it is one of the key contributions
that HR can provide to the business.
