What Should You Be Asking in a Prescreen Interview?

Finding the right candidate for an open position can be challenging these days. You might receive thousands of resumes to go through, which can generate pressure on your team. But here’s the good news:

You can cut down on the time it takes to vet talented people and identify the top people to fill that open role with a well-designed prescreen interview. Here’s how to manage your prescreening process, what to ask and what to avoid as you continue reviewing resumes and looking for your next brilliant employee.

How to think about prescreening

Pre-interview screenings are crucial to setting expectations, clarifying resume details, and ensuring more formal in-person interviews are being offered to the best prospective candidates for the job.

To help you stay on track with the pre-interview screening process, keep in mind the key goals for this vital interviewing step. These short employment screening calls give you the opportunity to:

• Verify a candidate’s basic qualifications
• Confirm resume details
• Evaluate communication skills
• Assess the candidate’s passion and motivation
• Present key expectations around the role
• Set next steps

So, with that in mind, what should you ask during the interview? And what should you avoid asking?

Do ask:

Since the goal of screening interview is to ensure it makes sense to bring a candidate in for a lengthy formal interview, use this tool to establish basic facts and look for good cultural fits. You can and should inquire about:

Job history

Confirm that the resume or LinkedIn profile you have received is accurate, and take the opportunity to clarify resume gaps or learn more about frequent job changes. This allows you to address concerns early and ensure you don’t overlook a great candidate.

Potential questions to include on your prescreening checklist:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What are your responsibilities in your current role?
3. Describe one of your most memorable professional achievements.

Specific skills the role requires

This next step ensures the candidate genuinely has the skills required to fulfill the position they’ve applied for.

Potential questions to include:

1. How do you see your skillset fitting the role you applied for?
2. How proficient are you in…? (fill in the blank with 2-3 of your most essential requirements)
3. Give an example of how you have successfully used… (fill in the skill) in your career?

Motivation and goals

Ask why the candidate is interested in working in this role, and specifically in your organization.

Potential questions to include:

1. What do you know about our company?
2. What appeals to you about working in this role?
3. What motivates you most in a job?

Work style preferences

By covering this area in a prescreen checklist, you can begin to gauge how well a person may fit your company’s culture.

Potential questions to include:

1. What is your ideal working environment?
2. What type of management style suits you best?
3. How do you approach staying on task in remote, hybrid, and in-person office environments?

Don’t ask:

To ensure you are embracing a compliant prescreening process, it’s just as important to know what to avoid! Remove items from your checklist if they are:

• Personal questions — These are a no-no, especially since they can easily skate into territories that could be prejudicial (age, ethnicity, religion, politics, etc.)
• Lengthy deep-dives — Save in-depth questions for the first full interview, when your team and the candidate will have plenty of time to address them.
• Assessment-related needs — Prescreening is not the place for this. Wait until after the first full interview to request a coding test, sample project, personality test, or other types of assessment.

Provide information on:

As you compile role-based screening interview checklists, plan to confirm basic details about the job so that you can confirm the candidate is aware of them. This allows everyone to ensure they’re on the same page before taking the time for a full interview.

What to let people know during the screening call:

1. Salary

If the job description already lists the salary range, simply confirm these numbers with the candidate. If the salary wasn’t listed, you can request the candidate’s preferred salary range on their application or discuss them during this job prescreening conversation.

2. Team culture

Briefly share your organization’s working style, such as how the team is structured and where the candidate will fit into it. Be transparent about the role and the expectations around it, so candidates can self-select if they’re a fit or not.

3. General benefits

Cover any additional general benefits that a candidate should know before moving forward, such as hours, full-time or part-time, and general PTO and insurance. Details can be saved for future interviews if the candidate is a good fit to move forward in the interviewing process.

Additional tips to keep in mind:

To get the best results from prescreening, follow these best practices:

• Stay on track with topics and time. Remember, prescreen interviews move fast, and most average 15–20 minutes.
• Create a list of questions you’ll use consistently. Asking the same questions of everyone helps to create a fair hiring process and allows you to compare candidates easily.
• Let the candidate do most of the talking. Focus on targeted open-ended questions to gain deeper insights into the person behind the resume.

Find Your Next Great Hire—with Help from inTulsa

Finding talented people can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to—especially when you collaborate with the right team to help you reach great candidates. At inTulsa, we’re your go-to partner for attracting talented people into your organization.