Chapter 13: Building Your Team
If you’re putting some money behind promoting a job post, chances are you’re going to get loads of applications; likely 50-100+ if the position seems attractive. This is great, but it’s important to know what to look for and how to narrow down the field of candidates. I’ve found it helpful to make a spreadsheet that lists the applicant’s contact info, if they have any of the stated qualifications (for example, if hiring a sales agent for a marketing firm, prior marketing experience & prior sales experience would be 2/2, only one of those would be 1/2, neither would be 0/2), a few brief notes of what stood out on their resume (for example, “MBA, prior sales experience, from Boston”), and a numerical ranking of their at-a-glance fit for the position (1 being great fit, 2 being alright, 3 being not so much).
The goal here is to trim down your massive pool of candidates to about 20% of where you started and offer interviews. It’s not practical to interview 100+ candidates just because they submitted an online application. Once you’ve gone through all the resumes, there should be a large portion you can eliminate easily - the ones you ranked a 3 in the “fit” category. These are likely people with no prior experience in the field, didn’t include a resume, or may not meet other basic qualifiers like location, who are just submitting loads of applications online.
Note: throughout the hiring process, it’s in good taste to send an email to rejected applicants as well to let them know they’re no longer being considered for the position. Something short and sweet like this should suffice:
“[Applicant]
We have reviewed your application for [position] at [Company], and regrettably inform you that we are choosing not to move forward with your application at this time.”
If more than 20% of the initial applicants look good on paper, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing (although it may mean more interviews). People tend to apply for a lot of jobs online when they’re searching, and may not actually be interested in working for you. When you do send out interview invitations, expect only around 50-70% to actually schedule an interview time.