Recruitment Consultant Training Tips – 2 Great Screening Interview Questions You Can Use

Screening candidates you speak to on the phone is often the first and sometimes only way you have at your disposal to establish their potential suitability for your clients’ vacant roles.

The questions you ask in these initial conversations need to be able to bring out the information you need, allow you to establish rapport, and also explore the things you already know about the candidate from their CV. They also need to allow you to get this insight quickly; so nobody’s time is wasted; especially yours!

Some CV’s can be vague at best and many great candidates don’t ‘job’ hunt regularly so their LinkedIn profile tends to be sparse; with little about how great they actually are coming through.

Time to do some metaphorical digging through asking a couple of questions you might not have used before.

So here they are; two great interview questions you can use when screening candidates for that next dream placement for them and for you.

“What sparked your interest in this vacancy?”

Asking the candidate why they were interested in the role is an effective way of finding out what their priorities are. This is really important as it will give you a great understand of their motivations.

For example if what they really want is a more senior role or better pay, or if their main priority is something else like location, size of recruitment agency, or a chance to work in a new sector. It may also prompt them to tell you about their circumstances – are they simply applying for anything they are qualified for because they are between jobs, are they cherry picking things to apply for because they are considering a move; or worse case are they jumping before they are asked to leave ?!

“Which of your skills do you think this company will be most interested in or impressed by?”

This question is a different way of asking them about their skills, because it will give you some insight into how well their idea of this vacancy matches what you know (and therefore how much you need to go into explaining the client’s culture to them), as well as which of their skills and achievements they are most proud of.

The creative and open style of this question also prompts the candidate to sell these skills to you, and it gives you a good feel for how they might fare at representing their skills to the potential employer. It is also sufficiently conversational that you can use what they tell you to open up new areas of discussion, or express interest and develop some initial rapport.

If a candidate is really serious about a role they will have done their research and understand what their potential employer might be looking for. Asking a question like this helps them demonstrate that ability to you.

Till next time,

Cheryl