Prescreening (pre-evaluation) of applicants is a fast and efficient way of assessing potential employees way before an interview takes place. For many employers, this process allows interviewers to understand job applicants better and in a way that is not possible through cover letters or resumes.

In many cases, the process involves;

Checking out candidates’ references
Video interviews
Evaluating cover letters
Making phone interviews
Skill tests
Temporary hiring
One-way video interviews

There are several benefits for you to prescreen your applicants. However, this list compiles some of the most important reasons:

Cut Down the Number of Applicants

When there is a high turnover of applicants, it is almost impossible to schedule a face to face interview with each applicant. However, pre-evaluation “weed out” unsuitable applicants for the job by checking out some of the most critical aspects. Issues such as grammatical mistakes on the resume, lack of cover letters, and other application requirements can hint the candidate’s level of attention to details and interest in the position. Similarly, this evaluation phase process can help recruiters to identify skilled candidates with ease.

Create Relevant Interview Questions

In most cases, interviewers tend to ask similar questions regardless of the job title and rank. However, in some instances, these questions may not be relevant in the field where the employees are needed. Instead of being caught off-guard as an interviewer and asking irrelevant questions, the pre-evaluation can highlight some of the relevant things to ask about. The questions asked during job interviews are essential to understanding the candidates, and the prescreen can act as a good source of information.

Protect the Company

Checking the resume and cover letter alone cannot tell an interviewer about the interviewees’ work ethic. Nonetheless, it is crucial to understand that new employees can bring about a great deal of destabilisation. For the interviewer to protect the company from this destabilising force, it is vital to check for troublesome personalities and ineffective persons beforehand.

Maximise the Interview process’s efficiency

In any business, efficiency is a critical element for success. Getting the most out of any situation can help a firm to reach its goals with ease. Similarly, using minimal resources should be one of the interviewers’ core goals when searching for new employees. By eliminating unsuitable candidates at different stages of the interview process, the potential employers get to choose among the creme de la creme of the applicants.

Understand the Job Market

Screening job applicants can help an employer to understand the job market. A pre-evaluation of applicants can give the interviewer the general ‘feel’ of the market skillsets; whether there are many quality applicants or a notable lack of exceptionally high-quality applicants.

Minimise the Disruptions of the Day to Day Business Operations

The interviewing and assimilation process in a business should be as seamless as possible. For most firms, the senior personnel in different departments get to interview potential employees. This implies that the business employees would have to accommodate the interview process in their day-to-day operations schedules. A prescreening process can highlight the most suitable applications and eliminate the rest to minimise this disruption.

Save Time

In any business, time is an important asset. For the company to thrive, time used in the performance of various tasks can determine how profitable the business venture is. For instance, the time taken to serve one customer can signal the number of customers served in a day. The faster the quality service, the more satisfied customers a business gets.

When employing, potential employers should optimise on time taken to get suitable members. In this case, the pre-evaluation process can reduce time-consuming interviews with applicants who do not qualify for the position.

Employing can be a daunting task. It is hard for job positions with many applicants to get a face-to-face interview with each of them. However, prescreening eliminates unqualified and unsuitable, which implies that the interviewers can focus on getting the right applicants and asking them the right questions.