As a business owner, you know that it's important to hire the right people. But how do you go about screening potential employees? By asking the right questions, of course! Here are some HR screening questions to help you get started.
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As companies, especially small companies and start-ups, begin eliminating HR departments from their company rosters, hiring managers are being faced with the challenge of interviewing and hiring new team members without the support of a dedicated human resources department. If you are in this position, you may be wondering how to start a phone interview as the interviewer. If you’re not using interview intelligence software, you may be in need of a phone interview script for the interviewer or even some basic HR screening questions to help you weed out potential candidates early. For more specific interview intelligence questions, check out one of our articles.
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When you first contact a candidate, you will want to call with a few phone screening interview questions already prepared to ask. Generally, these simple screening questions will help you discover early-on whether someone you’re speaking to is truly a qualified candidate. If the candidate is able to pass some very basic interview questions, you can enter into the next phase of the interview process with confidence that they will be capable of answering more in-depth questions during the main interview. 

It’s recommended that you begin by preparing a few basic questions that are specific to the role and the knowledge base that you expect every qualified candidate to have coming in. These questions will obviously be easily answered by someone who is qualified and has the basic, foundational knowledge required for the position. A person who is not qualified will likely be tripped up by these basic questions, making it fairly simple for you to pass on that candidate and ensure taht you’re not wasting your time or your hiring team’s time interviewing people who you would never choose to hire. Want to learn more about screening candidates? Check out our article on this topic. 
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HR Screening Interview

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Conducting an HR screening interview before your main interview is one of the best ways to determine which candidates are most qualified. This is a huge time saver when it comes to choosing who to interview for the position. When you begin selecting your candidates of interest, you’ll first embark on your HR screening process. This may involve sorting resumes and job applications to find the people who appear to be the most qualified based on the information provided. From there, you’ll develop screening call interview questions so you can dig a little deeper into your candidates’ qualifications and determine who is actually a contender and who should receive a pass. 

As you begin developing these questions, here are some screening interview tips. HR screening questions are questions asked by HR professionals during the job interview process in order to assess a candidate's suitability for a role. These questions typically fall into three categories: behavioural, technical, and cultural. By asking a mix of these different types of questions, HR professionals can get a well-rounded sense of a candidate and whether they would be a good fit for the company.

There are several benefits to using HR screening questions as part of your interview process. First, they help you to weed out candidates who are not a good match for the role or the company. This saves time and resources that can then be devoted to candidates who are more likely to be successful in the role. Additionally, by using screening questions, you can get a sense of a candidate's true colours; their responses to these types of questions will be more telling than their answers to standard interview questions.

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Screening Interview Questions

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As you develop your screening interview questions, think about what you want to know. A pre-screening interview is a great opportunity for you to get to know a little more about your candidates of choice before digging in deeper to their history and backgrounds. 

A good rule of thumb when developing your pre-screening questions is to consider the main topics that need to be covered. There are three main types of HR screening questions: behavioral, technical, and cultural. Let's take a closer look at each type:

Behavioral Questions: Behavioral questions assess how a candidate has handled certain situations in the past. This allows you to get a sense of how they might handle similar situations in the future. For example, you might ask behavioural questions such as "Tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflict at work" or "Describe a time when you went above and beyond your job duties." 

Technical Questions: Technical questions assess a candidate's knowledge and skills related to the specific role they're applying for. For example, if you're looking to hire an accountant, you might ask technical questions such as "How would you go about preparing financial statements?" or "What accounting software do you feel most comfortable using?" 

Cultural Questions: Cultural questions assess whether a candidate's values align with those of your organization. For example, you might ask cultural questions such as "What makes our company culture unique?" or "What would you say is our biggest accomplishment as an organization?"

This series of questions is a good start to your interview process. Once you ask these screening questions, you’ll have a much more qualified pool of candidates to choose from for the primary interviews. 

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Screening Questions For Recruiters

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As you develop your pre-screening interview questions, be sure to consider the questions that are illegal to ask versus the questions that are necessary to ask. Recall that it is not legal to ask questions about a candidate’s personal life so it is recommended that you confine your questions to work-related and technical questions. These are some great screening interview questions and answers for a refresher’s course in pre-screening.

Some Questions to Ask in Your Pre-Screening Process:

1.) Can you tell me a little bit about your experience?
2.) What made you interested in this position?
3.) What do you think are the key strengths that you would bring to this role?
4.) What do you think makes you stand out from the other candidates? 
5.) In your previous roles, what were some challenges that you faced and how did you overcome them? 
6.) Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer/client? 
7.) Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond for a project? 
8.) Tell me about a time when you had to take the lead on a project? 
9.) Tell me about a time when you failed at something? How did you learn from that experience? 
10.) Do you have any questions for me about the company or the role? 

Need help knowing what NOT to ask? We’ve got an article about that too. 

This helpful list of screening questions for recruiters will provide you with the best framework for your interview process. If you need more questions to ask for your interview or are looking for a more detailed structure to your interview, using interview intelligence software like Pillar could be the answer for you. Let us know if you’re interested in seeing a demo and taking the opportunity to get much-needed help with your interview process.