Candidate Selection

Once you have developed your recruitment plan, recruited people, and now have plenty
of people to choose from, you can begin the selection process. The selection
process refers to the steps involved in choosing people who have the right qualifications
to fill a current or future job opening. Usually, managers and supervisors will be
ultimately responsible for the hiring of individuals, but the role of human resource
management (HRM) is to define and guide managers in this process.Tthe selection
process is expensive. The time for all involved in the hiring process to review résumés,
weight the applications, and interview the best candidates takes away time (and costs
money) that those individuals could spend on other activities. In addition, there are the
costs of testing candidates and bringing them in from out of town for interviews. In fact,
the US Department of Labor and Statistics estimates the combined direct and indirect
cost of hiring someone new can reach upwards of $40,000 (Hamm, 2011). Because of
the high cost, it is important to hire the right person from the beginning and ensure a fair
selection process. For example, the Austin, Texas, fire department calculated it would
cost $150,000 to reinterview candidates, after the interview questions were leaked to
the public, giving some candidates possibly unfair advantages in the interview process1.

Figure 5.1

Interviews can be nerve wracking. In this chapter, we will discuss what goes into making
the best hiring decision.
Alan Cleaver – Interview – CC BY 2.0.
What is candidate selection?

Candidate selection is the process of finding the right person to fill a given position at
your organization. Importantly it covers all steps from initial resume screening to making
a final hiring decision and preparing a job offer. It can include skill assessments, an
interview, and a background check. Candidate selection is also part of the process
required to evaluate job applications and CVs.

The whole process will follow the usual steps which include things such as, application,
candidate screening, candidate pre-selection, assessments, interviews, background
checks, decision making and finally, job offers.

Candidate screening - which can be commonly misunderstood as candidate selection -

is where you either manually sift through CVs for good candidates or use application
based technology to highlight any particular candidate based on the criteria you set - i.e.
years of experience or keywords in the resume that may stand out.

Candidate pre-selection is where you get to look from the shortlist provided from the
screening phase in order to then bring in the candidates you want for further
assessments or even begin the interview process if you have used assessments in the
screening stage.

Why is the candidate selection process important?

Good candidate selection is based on effective recruitment that happens from the get
go. Being able to screen candidates, understand their level of skills, understanding of
the role and even the abilities they have on a personal level is going to make the
difference in finding a suitable employee.

But candidate selection is important for many other reasons as well. As highlighted in
the introduction, as many as 85% of job applicants lie on their CVs and that without the
correct level of screening or procedures to find a suitable candidate, there is a risk of
making bad hiring decisions which can cost the company time, money and even
potential legal issues the further it develops.

Finally, making a bad hiring decision can be bad for your organization but it can also be
bad for the candidate as well.

The selection process consists of five distinct aspects:

1. Criteria development. All individuals involved in the hiring process should be

properly trained on the steps for interviewing, including developing criteria,
reviewing résumés, developing interview questions, and weighting the
candidates.
 The first aspect to selection is planning the interview process, which includes
criteria development. Criteria development means determining which sources of
information will be used and how those sources will be scored during the
interview. The criteria should be related directly to the job analysis and the job
specifications. In fact, some aspects of the job analysis and job specifications
may be the actual criteria. In addition to this, include things like personality or
cultural fit, which would also be part of criteria development. This process usually
involves discussing which skills, abilities, and personal characteristics are
required to be successful at any given job. By developing the criteria before
reviewing any résumés, the HR manager or manager can be sure he or she is
being fair in selecting people to interview. Some organizations may need to
develop an application or a biographical information sheet. Most of these are
completed online and should include information about the candidate, education,
and previous job experience.
2. Application and résumé review. Once the criteria have been developed (step
one), applications can be reviewed. People have different methods of going
through this process, but there are also computer programs that can search for
keywords in résumés and narrow down the number of résumés that must be
looked at and reviewed.
3. Interviewing. After the HR manager and/or manager have determined which
applications meet the minimum criteria, he or she must select those people to be
interviewed. Most people do not have time to review twenty or thirty candidates,
so the field is sometimes narrowed even further with a phone interview.
4. Test administration. Any number of tests may be administered before a hiring
decision is made. These include drug tests, physical tests, personality tests, and
cognitive tests. Some organizations also perform reference checks, credit report
checks, and background checks. Once the field of candidates has been
narrowed down, tests can be administered.
5. Making the offer. The last step in the selection process is to offer a position to
the chosen candidate. Development of an offer via e-mail or letter is sometimes a
more formal part of this process. Compensation and benefits will be defined in an
offer.

Candidate selection criteria

We have come to understand that finding the best candidate is not the easiest job and
that making critical mistakes in this area can really have an impact on the future
success of the business. That’s why being able to develop your own candidate selection
process is essential but also why things such as qualifications, skills, knowledge and
experience included in the person specification, form the basis of the selection criteria
used throughout the selection process.

You need to be able to establish the criteria that is going to be used throughout the
selection period. From the initial person specification in the job description through to
making the job offer.
This is why developing the appropriate selection criteria, often referred to as the person
specification, is a crucial part of the whole recruitment process. Think of it like picking
the most ideal person for your sports team or for a home project - you want to match
what is required with the person that can achieve it.

So what are the typical candidate selection criteria that you can use for your own
process? Here are just some ideas.

What’s essential for the role vs what’s desirable

Essential criteria are the qualifications, experience, skills or knowledge you must have
to apply for a role. For example, filling the role of a database engineer will require
someone who has the knowledge of this specific area of I.T. They will also have the
necessary skills or knowledge to be able to complete tasks.

Desirable criteria are skills and experience that an employer would prefer - following
from the example above, this would be things such as a wider area of knowledge in I.T
to be able to support other areas in the business or it could even apply to softer skills
such as presentation abilities.

The realistic experience / skills / qualifications needed

Every business wants a superstar in their team. Every business wants someone who
can hit the ground running and be able to solve problems or push the business forwards
in leaps and bounds. This isn’t always possible though as expectations can sometimes
out match what is being offered - or is truly required.

For example, if you are recruiting from graduate level you will be trading off experience
for skills and qualifications. If you recruit from a senior perspective, you may be trading
off what you can offer in monetary terms vs all the years of experience, skills and
qualifications.

What’s needed for the future

You have to think about future proofing your business and your employee skill based
requirements as well. Do you need someone who has the knowledge or the ability to
learn the required knowledge to help the business in the future? Can you identify
candidates with skills that can be adapted for other roles?

Any specialist skills / attributes required

There will be very specific criteria within the business or the recruiting managers area
that needs addressing. What do you need from the ideal candidate that will allow them
to complete the work required in the role? Answer that question to then include in the
person specification.
Metrics and measurements used in the selection process

The point of using metrics to measure the recruitment process is so that it can give you
and your organization a view of what you are doing well and what you need to do to
improve the candidate experience.

You want to create a positive candidate experience, which makes it easier for your
employer brand to be able to attract the best candidates.

Using several different key metrics, depending on how and what you like to measure,
being able to clearly identify what you want to measure is key. For someone who is new
to key metrics and HR analytics, it can be difficult to keep track and understand what
the different metrics are.

We are going to take a closer look at some of the metrics that can be used to measure
the candidate selection and recruitment process, with a short explanation of each.

The summary will specify what the key metrics mean, why they are useful and most
importantly, how you calculate them in order to be able to work with them today and
take your candidate experience to a new level.

Application completion rate

This measures how many started applications are completed.

Understanding the quality of the application process and making sure that you do not
lose candidates even before the applications. If you are not scoring highly, this would
indicate that you have too much of a complicated application process.

Calculate by taking the number of started applications vs the number of completed

applications.

Time to fill the role

Measures the number of days it takes to fill an open position, from the date a job
requisition is posted to the date a new hire accepts the position. This metric is often
expressed as an average number of days when divided by the total number of hires or
positions filled.

Calculate this by taking the average time for the number of days it took from the first
contact with a candidate until the candidate leaves the process.