How to Screen Candidates

Why Screening Matters More Than Most Companies Think

If you’re a small or medium-sized company trying to hire talent, the screening stage of your hiring process is crucial. As a recruiter for Google, screening candidates amounted to roughly a quarter of my working hours because of the value it created.

In my experience, this part can make or break a hiring process if not calibrated perfectly. Screening rarely is too loose. The main risk is that it becomes a bottleneck that evicts potentially great candidates and dries your pipeline before it has had a chance to deliver. This step is misunderstood by most companies and usually not integrated adequately within the overall hiring process.

With this guide, I’ll walk you through what a screening call really is and is not, and how it should be conducted to evaluate fit while making sure you do not miss out on talent. I will also give you practical rules as well as concrete logistics so that your recruiting operations can run smoothly and help you close talent early.

What you should use screening calls for

What is a screening call

First things first, let’s define what a screening call is.

A screening call is your first proper interaction with a candidate. It is when their perception of your company and employer brand goes from a job ad or an outreach message to a voice, and ideally a face. This is your chance to make a great first impression, which will play a crucial role in the candidate’s decision to accept your offer at the end of the hiring process.

It’s also the best time for you to explain your business and to pitch the job offer to the candidate. This is the last selling step of your hiring process, before switching to filtering. It’s an opportunity to build rapport and establish enough trust for them to accept being interviewed, which we can agree is a position of vulnerability.

Lastly, this is your chance to match the resume with an actual person, and evaluate their general fit for the role and company. You should see the screening call as a basic exchange of information between you and the candidate, to assess whether it is worth proceeding further.

Who should conduct screening calls

If you’re an SMB, you might not have the luxury of having an internal recruiter, which means someone who is not a talent acquisition specialist is going to have to do it. The downside is that there is a learning curve to getting it right, and that it is time consuming. However, once you integrate it efficiently within your operations, this turns into an advantage.

A screening is a two-way conversation where both you and the candidate are evaluating each other and building trust. This means that both sides should ideally be seducing. The candidate is selling their experience and you are selling the opportunity. In such a context, a Hiring Manager, or even better a senior leader such as the CEO, carries much more credibility and is usually sharper in articulating the vision.

Larger companies have internal recruiting teams, so leaders do not get involved until later during the process, but they have strong brands and top-level recruiters to compensate. If that is not your case, use it to your advantage and get involved early to maximize your results.

How to conduct a screening call

Structure of a screening call

Now that we’ve understood the role that a screening call plays within the hiring process, we can talk about how to conduct it. I’ll first talk about how you should structure the call, and then dive deeper into how you should frame each part of the interaction.

Generally, I recommend screening calls to last approximately 30 minutes.

Many candidates are nervous, and most have a limited understanding of your company, so I suggest you go first by giving them an outline of your business. This will give them the context before you talk more precisely about the position itself. You should then proceed to sell the attractive aspects, before giving them time to ask clarifying questions. Finally, you can turn the tables and ask a few questions, before scheduling the first formal interview.

Here’s the general structure:

• (1) Tell them about your business
• (2) Sell the opportunity
• (3) Let them ask questions
• (4) Ask questions

I’ll now guide you through each step and give you a blueprint you can follow to conduct your screening calls.

(1) Tell them about your business

At this stage, you cannot expect candidates to be fully briefed about your business and its intricacies. If your hiring process started with cold outreach, for example with sourcing as SaiyouTeam does it, they are what salespeople call a cold prospect. They agreed to talk to you out of curiosity, and they might be the right fit, but you reached out to them first so you should be showing your cards first.

(a) Business outline

First, articulate in a clear and simple way what your business does.

“At [Company], we build [Product] that we sell to [Client] via [Channel].”

You can also give them a bit of history, such as when the company was founded, why, and by whom. Add a few highlights, which could be one or two major wins such as landing a famous brand as a client or successfully launching a new product.

Keep it simple and clear, rather than jumping into the complexities. You do not want to overwhelm candidates with massive amounts of new information. They will not retain most of it and it will only serve to confuse them.

(b) Team structure

Then talk about how you deliver, by summarizing your operations.

“Our [Team 1] does [X] using [Tools or Process]. Our [Team 2] does [Y], etc.”

You can also mention team size and a general idea of the profiles and backgrounds that you usually hire for.

This part gives the candidate a clear picture of what work is done, by whom, and how.

(c) The hiring team

You can then zoom in further and talk more specifically about the team within which the open position sits. Tell them:

• What the team does
• How it is structured, including size, roles, and responsibilities
• What its current focus is, such as the current project or what it is trying to accomplish this year
• The main challenge it is currently facing

This is a great framework to give candidates the full context, explain where the role fits, and explain the context behind the open position. It makes it easy for you to then introduce the opportunity itself.

(d) The role

You can then explain why the role is open, and whether it is a new position or a replacement. If it is a replacement, eliminate any doubt in the candidate’s mind and explain why the previous person left.

Then I recommend talking about the key mission and top 2 to 3 responsibilities, rather than the full laundry list, by explaining why they matter to the team and the business.

Be upfront about what you are looking for in a candidate, by mentioning the 2 to 3 non-negotiable experiences and skills. Leave the requirements part to that, because you do not want to push away candidates by talking too much about the nice-to-haves. This is still useful information to share, because it tells the candidate why they were reached out to, and if they are smart they will know what to focus their answers on when it is their turn.

Lastly, you can talk about how performance is evaluated and what success in the role looks like. People want to know what standards will be expected of them, and the clearer you are, the more doubts you will alleviate.

(2) Sell the opportunity

Now it is your time to sell the role you are hiring for. So far, you have talked about the business, the team, and the position from your standpoint. These points were about you, but selling the opportunity means making it about the candidate.

You should create an elevator pitch that clearly outlines the 1 or 2 USPs, or unique selling points, just as if you were selling a product. This should quite clearly answer the what’s in it for me.

Rather than giving you a ready-made recipe, I’ll give you the different categories you can use as USPs. This way you will be able to select the right ones for your specific case. I will list these from strongest to weakest. This will give you insight into their seduction power and help you position your offer strategically.

Though the ranking below gives you a general idea of the power of each level, that ranking is different for each candidate. This is why it is important for you to probe and adjust your pitch to what they seem to value most, whenever possible.

(a) Step-up opportunity ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is when you offer either an immediate step-up that could be considered a promotion to a candidate.

This could be in title only, for example interviewing mid-level Software Engineers for a Senior Software Engineer position. Or it can be a more meaningful progression, such as interviewing IT Support Specialists with development skills for a Junior Software Engineer role.

The value for the candidate is immediate. If they are selected, they move to the next level of their career, get to do bigger things, and earn more. This is probably the easiest sell and also my favorite positioning for SMBs, because if done correctly you can find rising stars early and hire them more easily than established competitors, which often only offer lateral moves.

(b) Career development opportunity ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This offer is similar to the immediate step-up in that it expands a candidate’s scope, except that it is technically a lateral move.

This is most common with larger companies. When Apple recruits an engineer from a small company, they usually do not offer a step-up in title. Candidates do, however, see this as a huge career development opportunity because they get to work at a larger scale, on a more visible product, for a bigger brand, and with world-class colleagues.

Making this type of offer is basically the privilege of being higher up in the food chain, which most SMBs do not have. This might, however, be the type of competition you are up against, so it is useful to understand how candidates value this.

(c) Working conditions ⭐⭐⭐

Working conditions are another huge selling point, and as work culture evolves they are becoming more prominent in candidates’ minds and expectations.

By working conditions, I do not mean free food and sleeping pods. From experience, what really matters to candidates is the respect of their private time. That means anything from working hours, expected overtime, flex-time, and work-from-home arrangements, as well as your vacation policy.

These benefits should not only be thought of as a way to retain current staff. They are also key arguments in hiring candidates. For example, one of our clients at SaiyouTeam offers a generous vacation policy of five weeks, which is almost unheard of in Japan, and a no-overtime guarantee. This allows them to hire above their league while keeping attrition extremely low. It makes hiring easier and reduces the need for it.

(d) Company mission ⭐⭐

Founders tend to over-index on the company’s mission. Yes, you are changing the world, but candidates usually are not able to share the same level of excitement. You built the business from scratch with great ambition, and you own it. They, on the other hand, are usually looking for a work arrangement where they sell their time for money. They will not be the owner benefiting from your multi-year strategy.

There is nothing wrong with expecting candidates to share the same values and be attracted by the mission. Most people want to work on interesting projects and build great things, but it just is not the level of pull that many founders think it is.

The exception is what I call mission-driven companies, which have singular goals for the greater good. You can put companies like SpaceX, which pitches space colonization, or NGOs in this bucket. For these organizations, values and mission matter a lot more. Chances are, though, that this is not your case. Talk about your mission, gauge their excitement, but do not bet everything on it to close candidates.

(e) Higher salary ⭐

This probably comes as a surprise, yet this is a common thread I’ve seen throughout my recruiting career, first as a headhunter and then as a corporate recruiter for Groupon and Google. I’ve hired at every level, from junior to director, and for every company size, from small unknown companies up to FAANG, and salary was almost never the main reason someone changed jobs.

Yes, money is important, but it is a condition to meet rather than a motivator. Concretely, if the package on offer is too low compared with their current compensation or similar offers, you will lose the candidate. However, you will not convince a candidate to join your company just because you offer a higher salary.

This is actually good news for SMBs, which usually cannot compete with larger firms on pay. This is not what you will attract candidates with anyway, so do not worry too much about it. Be transparent and upfront about salary, but focus your sales pitch on the more meaningful areas.

(3) Let them ask questions

Once you’ve explained the key details about your company and delivered your elevator pitch, you should give them space for a few questions.

My advice here is to mention a number of questions, for example two or three, ahead of time. This lets the candidate know they should be selective about what they want to know. It also prevents the screening from derailing into a long Q&A session.

This is also where your evaluation really starts. You will be able to analyze what aspects of the company, role, or offer they care about most. Generally, if their first focus is on benefits or compensation, it tells you they are not very interested in the business itself. On the contrary, if they get curious about your strategic vision, how your team operates, and how you are thinking about solving current challenges, you know you are dealing with an engaged candidate.

(4) What questions to ask during a screening call

Once you’ve answered their questions, you can gently redirect the conversation toward getting to know them a bit more. At that stage, you’ve probably been talking for a good 20 minutes and they should feel comfortable. This is the right time to get them to open up.

What I like to do here is to give them a quick outline of what I am going to ask about. This removes worry about what type of question is coming next. It also lets them structure their answers because they will know what needs to be covered.

A key principle to remember is that your line of questioning should only assess whether you’re talking to the right type of candidate, meaning general fit, and whether the open role fits their career goals. The formal interviews that come next will serve to evaluate how good they are.

It is best to stay away from yes-or-no questions, which reveal very little. For example, “Were you in charge of [X] at [Company]?” is a poorly phrased question because it gives the candidate little space to express their value. For that reason, I suggest using open-ended questions, which give candidates the freedom to answer with what they feel is relevant. These answers will be longer, deeper, and more insightful.

Here’s what I advise you to ask about:

(a) Self introduction

First ask for a general introduction.

The question: “Tell me about your background and career so far.”

Check that:

• They balance their answer based on relevance to your role, for example by glossing over their early career and focusing on their most recent and relevant experiences.
• They are able to give you a clear and concise overview, just like you did for your business, which signals an ability to structure their thoughts.

(b) Current role

You should then ask about their most relevant position. That is often their last job, although specific situations may differ. Generally speaking, that’s the clearest expression of the expertise you are looking for.

The question: “Tell me about your mission as a [Position] for [Company].”

What to listen for in the answer:

• Are they able to clearly define the purpose of their role within the company?
• Can they focus on the two to three key aspects or do they answer with a list?
• Is their main area of focus relevant to the role you are hiring for?

(c) Best achievement

You can then transition to asking about their capabilities. There are many ways to do this, but I like to ask them to walk me through their biggest achievement. This reveals what candidates cared about most and gives them a chance to talk about what they are most proud of. It is an easy but revealing question which should spark some excitement in the eyes of the right candidate.

The question: “What do you think is your biggest achievement at [Company]?”

Broader alternative: “What professional achievement are you the most proud of?”

What to listen for in the answer:

• Do they have a clear idea of what they did well and why it was great?
• Did they measure the broader impact of the achievement or did they just enjoy the work?
• Do they talk about it with passion or are they simply quoting the highest number on their CV?

(d) Current situation

Now that you know enough about their skills and experience, and assuming that these are a fit, you need to understand whether the timing and opportunity are right for them. We are done with open-ended questions in the broad sense. We are now trying to confirm whether we can move forward.

The question: “Are you open to new opportunities and why?”

This helps you determine where they are in their job search. Have they just started browsing around or are they actively interviewing? It is also useful to understand whether the move is self-driven, such as deciding to move on for specific reasons, or caused by an external factor such as a layoff or personal situation.

None of the above are negative answers, but it helps you understand what motivates a specific candidate to jump ship.

(e) Next move

Lastly, I’d advise asking them about what they want out of their next job and what aspects they prioritize.

The question: “If you could create your ideal next job, what would it be?”

I like this question because it removes your job offer from the equation and forces them to reveal what they really value. Smart candidates who are interested in your position will try to bring their answer closer to what you described, which is a good sign.

If answers are satisfactory, you should move straight into booking the first interview.

Book the interview

Why the screener should be the decision maker

Here’s a best practice to remember: the person conducting the screening should make the decision to interview. This means that you should grant interview scheduling authority to the person conducting screening calls.

The reason is that at this stage the screening call is the richest data point, and only the screener has access to it. Where a resume is a cold list of facts, a human-to-human interaction lets us pick up on a million signals. These come from body language, tone of voice, pauses and hesitations, facial expressions, and much more. You do not need to be an expert because the average person does this analysis instinctively. A screening call therefore allows for a much more complete and accurate reading of the candidate.

Now, if you add another decision maker, you inevitably dilute that information by having the screener pitch the candidate to someone who only has a resume to refer to. More often than not, that decision maker will reject the candidate based on the limited information in the resume rather than what was actually said during the screening call. You are basically eliminating the benefit of conducting a screening call and making the decision based on the CV.

Book the interview right now

Another reason for giving full powers to the screener is that it allows them to book interviews during the call itself, while they are talking to the candidate. This obviously speeds up your process by eliminating email back and forth, but the main opportunity is elsewhere.

As mentioned, the screening call is a two-way street where you are selling an opportunity at your company to a cold prospect. That candidate may be considering other roles, and they may be on the fence with yours. Do not take that personally. Just like you are, they are trying to make smart decisions based on limited information. The best and easiest way to secure a commitment from them is therefore to ask for it while you still have them on the line.

This does three things:

• It makes it much harder for them to refuse without a strong reason.
• If they do push back, they will formulate an objection that you can address right away.
• It does not give them time to second-guess their conversation with you.

The screening call itself carries the most momentum, which you should take advantage of. This is the strike-the-iron-while-it’s-hot principle that every salesperson worth their salt uses.

Now, how do you book an interview with the next interviewer without asking them about their schedule? You need to plan ahead.

What I encourage every interviewer to do is:

• Create open interview slots in their calendar. This can be done easily with Google Workspace or Outlook.
• Agree on a simple scheduling rule so that no one is caught off-guard. For example, interviews must be scheduled at least 48 hours in the future.
• Toward the end of the screening call, show these slots to the candidate and ask them which time slot they prefer.

You’ll get better results by offering a choice between several time slots rather than asking them whether they want to interview.