Pre-selection is an efficient and cost-effective early step of the recruiting process, with the goal to filter out candidates that do NOT match the job profile. It’s called negative selection: the ability to identify and deselect the people that will not perform well in the job.

Then there is the classical positive selection: which of the suitable candidates are best suited to the job requirements and the team? Logically, a successful hire (meaning a successful positive selection) depends on the quality of your negative selection.

So how can we make candidate pre-selection as efficient as possible? Let me show you valuable and valid methods to make the best out of this recruiting step.

ONLINE ASSESSMENTS to increase the rate of suitable candidates

The goal of an effective pre-selection is to have as many qualified candidates as possible remaining. This is called base rate. In other words, a base rate is defined by the percentage of candidates thought to adequately perform the job in the future. In order to achieve the highest possible base rate, online assessments are a very useful method.

Start with online assessment, then use assessment centres

Assessment centres are expensive and time consuming for all involved. It’s therefore advisable to identify the best candidates in advance before inviting them to the AC. An efficient way to do this is to use online assessments. Many companies use them in pre-selection to see which candidates meet as many requirements as possible. They are able to have a rather complex overview of their skills and abilities before the AC takes place.

Structured video assessments on the rise

Portugal's energy group has successfully implemented online assessments in their pre-selection. As well as online tests, they have been using structured video interviews, a new but very effective and diagnostically proven method to identify talents early on. Read here how they selected 170 top candidates for the assessment centre out of 3000 applications.

In case you're interested, we have prepared a white paper about video interviewing and its impact on pre-selection. You can download it here: http://goo.gl/UgSNpN