Do filter questions on job applications benefit recruiters?
We recently had a meeting with a San Diego based job board developer who were pitching for the opportunity to host our job board.
One of the services they offered was the ability to insert filter questions into the job application process. i.e. a job seeker would need to supply the correct answers to these questions in order for their application to be sent successfully to the employer. Supposedly these questions would serve to filter out the unsuitable candidates and provide a more suitable set of c.v.s for the employer to browse.
We had a similar but less advanced function on our existing UK job board and found that no recruiters who posted to our site were interested in using it. The San Diego based company assurred me that such a practice is widespread in the U.S. and regularly returns successful relevant results. Can anyone here confirm that?
If you currently use filter questions I would really like to hear about your experiences. I suppose my main concern is that if a filter question can cut an application short, it will affect my monthly stats. Even though it was an attempted application, it will become just another job view.
Let me know your experiences, good or bad, using filter questions.
One of the services they offered was the ability to insert filter questions into the job application process. i.e. a job seeker would need to supply the correct answers to these questions in order for their application to be sent successfully to the employer. Supposedly these questions would serve to filter out the unsuitable candidates and provide a more suitable set of c.v.s for the employer to browse.
We had a similar but less advanced function on our existing UK job board and found that no recruiters who posted to our site were interested in using it. The San Diego based company assurred me that such a practice is widespread in the U.S. and regularly returns successful relevant results. Can anyone here confirm that?
If you currently use filter questions I would really like to hear about your experiences. I suppose my main concern is that if a filter question can cut an application short, it will affect my monthly stats. Even though it was an attempted application, it will become just another job view.
Let me know your experiences, good or bad, using filter questions.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dionna on
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Hi Moray,
I think I can offer you a couple of different perspectives. I have been recruiting for fortune 100 companies for the past 7 years as both an in-house corporate recruiter and on the agency side here in the US. I have also done employment advertising sales for a large daily newspaper, where we sold online advertisings, as well.
Let me put my recruiter hat on first. We DEFINITELY utilize the "filter questions." It is not unlikely for many large, well-respected, fortune 500 companies to get a thousand applicants for one job (sometimes more.) Out of those 1000 resumes, only 100 may be qualified (if that many.) It is a horribly tedious process to wade through the other 900. There are also notorious appliers. These are applicants that apply to every job we have posted regardless of the qualifications. This can also be a huge pain for recruiters. A recruiter or employer will ultimately weight the effectiveness of your job board based on qualified applicants and even hires, so though I understand your point about questionnaires lowering some of your stats, it will definitely make employers happier and therefore continue using your board, if you can cut down some of the time they waste sorting through irrelevant resumes and applicants.
As an online employment account manager, many of the larger companies that I serviced were definitely interested in our filtering capabilities, in fact not having this option would have been a deal breaker in some cases, but for smaller companies or agencies looking to build up there resume databases this option was not important. If you are targeting small businesses this function may not be important, but for recruiters and larger companies who also utilize monster, careerbuilder & hot jobs they will be looking for job boards with similar functionality.
Now as an online recruitment entrepreneur having this capability is important to me because this industry is extremely competitive and recruiters/employers will be comparing my site to the "big boards" so in order for my company to get a piece of the market I think that I need to be able to offer as many tools as possible.
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Permalink Reply by Bryan Lewis on
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This is a feature that is very common among US boards. My wife is in charge of hiring for her branch and uses filter questions almost every time because of the specific requirements of her industry.
Filter questions is probably at the top of my wish list of Jamit, the job board software I use.
Bryan
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Permalink Reply by Moray Souter on
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Thank you for your comments guys.
From what you say it seems filter questions are a valuable function after all.
Thanks again.
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Austin on
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We offer "applicant screening" questions on bankjobs.com, through our software, Forcefinder. While it doesn't "reject" applicants -- or stop them from being sent along based on their answers to the pre-screening questions, it does offer a "score." So then the recruiter sees the applicant's name, and his score (4 out of 5 or something like that, so he/she knows which candidates to view first).
A lot of recruiters don't use them, but the most successful recruiters on our board usually do. It saves them a LOT of pre-screening phonecalls. Also, they often use them to ask simple questions that a lot of candidates might ignore in the job requirements -- i.e, are you US-based candidate, etc. Forcefinder allows the recruiter to put what the desirable answer is, and also to say whether a text answer is required or not. The best candidates tend to use the questions to elaborate on their experiences and sell themselves, particularly when it's a top level job.
All of this is to say that yes, pre-screening questions are great -- but perhaps there's a way that you can modify them so that they issue a "score" -- and don't simply kick back the application entirely. Good luck!
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