5 steps of the selection process for hiring employees

1. Application

The application phase in the selection process is sometimes seen as passive from the hiring team side – you just wait for candidates to respond to your job ad. However, applications can and should be selection tools, helping you sort candidates as qualified or unqualified.

2. Resume screening

Now that you have wrapped up the application phase of the employee selection process, you have a collection of resumes or CVs to sift through and filter those deemed suitable for a screening call. What you’ll need to do now is go through resumes one by one, whether manually or software-assisted, and identify prime candidates.

3. Screening call

The screening call, or phone screen, is among the initial hiring stages where recruiters shortlist applicants. The purpose of this call is to establish whether the candidate is truly interested in the job and (at least) minimally qualified to do it successfully. This way, only the best applicants will go to the next, stricter (and more expensive) hiring stages, like assessments and in-person interviews, saving your team time and money.

4. Assessment test

Once you’ve screened candidates and sorted them out into “promising”, “maybe”, and “disqualified” groups, you want to look at the surviving candidates and further assess their ability to do the job you’re looking to fill.

5. In-person interviewing

You’re now deep in the selection process, having screened candidates, evaluated their skills, assessed their abilities, and created a shortlist of the most qualified people.