How to Review & Shortlist Applicants

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Overview

How to review and shortlist job applicants. This guide describes a process for reviewing and sorting applications for a posted position.  It provides helpful guidance to any Company employee undertaking this task and ensures consistency in the approach and outcomes.

This Reviewing Applicants Guide is used by those involved in reviewing applicants for the purpose of shortlisting or disqualifying job applicants for a posted position. The guide outlines procedures for preparing, reviewing and sorting applicants to what to do once you have a short list or if you end up with limited or no suitable candidates identified.

Screening & shortlisting job applicants quickly and efficiently is task that has it’s challenges. The Reviewing Applicants Guide will help solve any talent acquisition bottlenecks that arise by providing step by step instructions on how to efficiently, accurately and effectively review and shortlist applicants to move forward in your recruitment process.

If you’re looking for a perfect candidate, you probably won’t succeed. It’s simply not realistic to expect candidates to rank high on every single skill and trait you have on your wish list. Before you start the reviewing applicants, its important that you’re clear about what you must have and what would be nice-to-have.

Why use it

Learn how to review and shortlist job applicants to: 

• Educate your staff on how to review applications and resumes submitted by job applicants, instead of assuming they know how to do it.
• Introduce consistency across managers in your company.
• Help ensure a better end result and top talent is hired.

What you risk by not using it

If you don't provide guidance for how to review and shortlist job applicants:

• Good potential candidates are screened out for the wrong reasons and you go through the whole recruiting process with fewer candidates than necessary.
• Poor candidates are not screened out and time is wasted interviewing the wrong people.
• Everybody does it differently.

Guide - How to Review & Shortlist Job Applicants