Overwhelmed by Too Many Ho-Hum Applicants? Try This!
You know how to spot a 5-Star Employee, but have you been struggling to see them through the crowds of 1, 2, and 3-Star Employees?
Modern job seekers apply for lots of jobs – even if they aren’t qualified for the positions. With the number of unqualified applicants on the rise, you could use some extra bouncers at the door. Luckily, your custom Hiring Gauntlet was designed to be dynamic, because hiring needs can change pretty quickly these days.
Incorporating additional applicant filters is a breeze, so let’s go over a couple of examples.
- Add More Dealbreakers to Role-Specific Disqualifying Questions
Your first line of defense against 1, 2, and 3-Star Candidates is the collection of role-specific disqualifying questions you require all applicants to answer. During The ALL IN Hiring System Overhaul, you learned about what kinds of questions make for excellent disqualifiers:
- Eligibility
- Compensation
- Remote / In-Person Position
- Job Requirements
The secret here is to think of more dealbreakers and details in the past that you have deemed unacceptable based on your experiences as an employer. The more you narrow down what you aren’t looking for from the very beginning, the less unqualified applicants you’ll have to sift through.
- Require More Skills Testing
You can never have enough skills testing. One of the biggest mistakes employers make during the hiring process is not requiring candidates to complete skills testing that demonstrates they can do the work for the role.
One of our favorite ALL IN mantras is saying it vs. doing it. 5-Star Candidates will prove they can do the work, and enjoy the challenge, so including multiple skills tests won’t drive your preferred candidates away. However, those unqualified applicants will be scared off by the amount of work they must prove they can complete correctly.
Don’t forget that creating custom skills testing will help you get really specific on what you want and what you don’t want, and skills tests are simple to build on your own!
In your efforts to avoid hiring 1, 2, and 3-Star Employees, you identified what made those team members less than 5-Stars. Creating skills testing around what skills 1, 2, and 3-Star Employees have lacked or would lack in your organization is an intentional applicant filter that could clear away average, ho-hum candidates.
Incorporating multiple applicant filters in your Hiring Gauntlet will save you the time of weeding through 1, 2, and 3-Star Candidates to find the top 15% of available talent.
Leveraging this strategy is another way to ensure you never settle for anything less than a 5-Star Employee.
Which of these ideas would you incorporate into your Hiring Gauntlet? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
