Over this time, it has been a daily challenge to change mindsets and, above all, to provide a true recruiting experience. When we thought about revolutionizing the recruitment market in Portugal, we had no idea how positive it would be to provide a better recruitment experience to candidates and recruiters through asynchronous interviews.
Hiring efficiency matters now more than ever. With the early months of 2023 demonstrating widespread job growth—particularly in the areas of hospitality, business and professional services, and healthcare—you’re going to need to sharpen every tool in your toolkit in order to keep ahead of the curve. Taking a second look at your screening interview questions could be your next best step in adjusting your hiring process.
Whether delivered through an in-person or a remote interview process, screening interview questions are a great way to eliminate candidates who are unqualified, underqualified, or unsuitable, leaving you to focus your time, energy, and resources only on those who are the best fit.
The dangers of asking bad screening interview questions
When done well, a screening process or pre-screening interview will help weed out unfit candidates so that you can focus on the cream of the crop. When done poorly, however, screening interview questions can sometimes cause more harm than good.
For example, certain job interview questions can insert the potential for bias into your screening process. Even something as simple as “Tell me about your accomplishments” can create a bias, particularly for candidates who come from cultures in which listing one’s personal accomplishments is seen as bragging or boasting.
This question inserts a natural advantage for some while proving disadvantageous for others. That is why, when creating screening interview questions, you must always carefully filter each potential question for hidden bias.
If you miss this step in the process, you could create hidden barriers for some of your most qualified candidates before they even have a chance to advance in your interview process. When choosing your screening questions, another concern relates to compliance with legal and ethical guidelines. In efforts to protect privacy and ensure fairness, certain types of questions have been deemed off-limits.
Illegal pre-screening interview questions include queries related to:
Sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity
Marital or family status
Race and ethnicity
Disability
Religion
Always ensure that pre-screening interview questions are relevant and provide insight into a potential candidate's unique skills, experience, and fitness for the position and company culture while eliminating bias and complying with current legal and ethical guidelines. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and aren’t sure where to start, that’s okay.
We’ve gathered a list of options for you to consider, and will walk you through them below.Perhaps even better still, here in Live Jobs - Video Interview Software, we also have the tools and resources you need to make implementing a screening interview process quick and easy.
A well-structured battery of screening interview questions can help you judge a candidate’s levels of:
Knowledge and experience
Teamwork/cooperation
Adaptability/creativity
Critical/analytical thinking
Relational strengths and weaknesses
Communication skills
Time management
Attention to detail
Decision making
Integrity
Much has been discussed about the way or the magic in which recruiters struggle daily to attract their best candidates. We, as a specialist in video recruitment, wanted to hear from our candidates and aks what the best questions would be for them to get "stuck" in a recruitment process and choose company A over company B.
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Question 1: What initially attracted you to our company and this position?
This question is deceptively simple. Depending on how the candidate answers, you may receive a wealth of information.
What the job seeker knows about your company
Whether they understand the open position and what it entails
Whether the candidate has the skills, experience, or enthusiasm needed to get the job done
Question 2: How would you describe your work style and approach to completing tasks?
This question helps you get a handle on the candidate’s soft skills and how well they will be able to fit into the work environment.
What is their level of self-awareness?
What instincts and personality traits can you observe in their answers?
Do they understand and can they articulate the conditions under which they could thrive at work?
Are the conditions they described a good match for the role they would be assuming if they got the job?
Question 3: Can you provide an example of a time when you had to overcome a significant challenge at work? How did you handle it?
Behavioral questions such as these do more than simply give you insight into how people approach handling challenges at work. They also offer an idea of what type of situation a candidate would classify as a “significant challenge” in the first place.
While listening to the answer, analyze both the approach they took and the steps they followed to resolve the challenge. Also, listen to the way in which they talk about the other parties involved in the situation.
Even if the other party was clearly in the wrong, speaking in a belittling or disparaging way is a major red flag.
Question 4: What is your experience with [specific skill or software relevant to the position]?
With this question, listen not just to what the candidate says but to how they say it. Disorganized or overly long-winded answers may be a sign of someone overcompensating for a lack of skill or experience.
A job seeker who truly has experience with specific skills and software can generally speak to them competently, confidently, and concisely—even off the cuff. Someone who can do so is someone you’ll want to focus energy and attention on moving forward in the interview process.
Question 5: Can you tell me about a project you worked on that you are particularly proud of? What was your role, and what was the outcome?
This screening interview question can help you target people who have already achieved professional accomplishments within their field. Those who cannot name a completed project in which they played a role—or those who pivot to personal accomplishments in lieu of professional ones—are not the candidates you will likely spend time to move on to the next step.
