Hiring

Screen applicants before a recruiter spends an hour on it

Screen applicants on the phone before a recruiter spends an hour on it, and capture the answers against the role rather than in a notebook.

Incoming call

What this is for

First-stage screening is the same fixed list of questions asked over and over, and it eats more of a recruiter's day than anything else. So the middle of the applicant pile never gets called. Not because those people are unsuitable, but because there were forty of them and the day ran out.

How a screening call runs

  1. 01

    Calls everyone, not the top ten

    The screen runs against the whole list rather than the part somebody reached. How the pile happened to be sorted stops deciding who gets spoken to.

  2. 02

    Asks the role's real requirements

    Shift availability, right to work, certifications, distance from site, notice period. The knockout questions for that role, in the same order every time.

  3. 03

    Records answers against the role

    Each answer becomes a field on the application instead of a line in a notebook. You filter the shortlist on the criteria rather than reading for them.

  4. 04

    Books the ones who pass

    A candidate who clears the bar is offered interview slots from the live calendar and booked on the call, while they are still interested in the job.

Related

Recruitment: common questions

Does it decide who gets hired?

No. It asks a fixed set of screening questions and records the answers as structured fields. Who progresses is a decision your team makes from that data.

Is a phone screen fairer than a CV sift?

It is more consistent. Every applicant gets the same questions in the same order, recorded the same way. That consistency is the argument for it. Whether the criteria themselves are right is still on you.

Can candidates ask it questions?

Yes, if you give it the material. Shift patterns, pay band, where the site is, what the first week looks like. Those are the things applicants actually ring back about.

What about candidates who do not answer?

Retries and their timing are campaign settings. Every attempt ends in an outcome, so an unreached candidate is visible rather than quietly dropped.

Does it work for high-volume roles?

That is where the arithmetic bites hardest. Warehouse, retail, care, driving. Calls run in parallel, so the size of the applicant pool stops setting the timeline.

Still stuck? Talk to our team.