5 tips on choosing between your two best equally qualified candidates

By Rob Hayter, Director at TPP Not for Profit

Imagine you are in that lucky situation that many would like to be in; you don’t have one great candidate for a role, you have two! Sometimes though, having two great candidates can make the decision process even harder. There are many elements to think about, recruitment can be expensive and you don’t want to regret your decision in a few months’ time. This month we give you our top tips on how to ensure you are choosing the best candidate for the job.

Testing

You can test candidate’s skills and experience pretty well in a formal interview, however testing, such as psychometric assessing, can give you a better idea about their personality and cultural fit. This kind of testing typically consists of numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning or situation judgements. There aren’t always right or wrong answers in these tests, for example, situational judgement tests look at the way someone may handle a situation.

Before commencing these tests, ensure you have a good idea about the type of person that will fit in; do you want someone that thinks on their feet and takes action? Or are you looking for someone that seeks advice before making decisions? Are you looking for someone who can work well on their own (maybe home working is an important element to this role) or someone that works well in a team (based in a busy office)? Having these details before your candidates commence the test will make analysing them much easier.

Meeting in a relaxed setting

If the interview process has been very formal or included panel interviews, then invite each candidate for an informal relaxed meeting, maybe even a morning’s visit to the office. Incorporate the team into this; this will give you a good indication how the candidates will work with other members of your team and how they’ll fit in with your culture.

Seeing a candidate in a relaxed setting will also show you more of their personality, which isn’t always easy to determine in a formal interview. By meeting the team, you are getting them on board for whichever candidate you choose and they may even have a favourite too.

Take references

Obviously you would not want to contact the candidate’s current employer; however this does not stop you taking references from previous employers. Ask each candidate for details on their previous employer and contact these, ideally for a verbal reference. This will give you a better idea on the candidates’ cultural fit and personality, than a formal reference form around absence and employment dates.

Look at the future of your team

Hopefully this person will remain with your organisation for the foreseeable future, so it’s a good idea to look at your organisation’s future plans. For example, if your team is going to expand rapidly, someone who has worked in larger teams before may perform better in this environment. If you are going to expand internationally, someone with languages may be beneficial.

Equally, just because an applicant doesn’t have experience working in a particular environment, does not mean they won’t perform well. However if you know what’s likely to happen in the future, you can construct scenario-based questions which will help you assess the candidates’ abilities to cope.

Do you have any other skills gaps in your team that one of these candidates could help fill in? For example, one of them might be a whizz with social media, something you are lacking. Could they help support this until you are ready to recruit for this role?

Ask them directly why you should choose them

One candidate may be more motivated for the role than the other. By asking why you should hire them, you should get an indication about their motivations for their role and a good candidate should be able to ‘sell’ themselves and tell you what skills they feel they would bring.

Finally…

Ensure you have asked the candidate their thoughts on the role, salary package, notice periods etc. You may end up being in a position where one candidate is more likely to accept an offer than the other, or one wants a higher salary than you can realistically offer. These are better sorting out before offer stage.

Ensure you keep both candidates in the loop during this process, especially if it becomes lengthy, or you may end up losing two good candidates. And finally ensure you take the time to give the candidate that is not hired feedback. You can read more about the importance of providing feedback on our blog. 

If you aren’t in the fortunate position to have two candidates to choose from and would like to see a selection of candidates for roles you are recruiting to compare or benchmark against your current shortlist please contact us on 020 7198 6000 or info@tpp.co.uk

How to shortlist CVs quickly and effectively

By Nick Billingham, Manager at TPP Not for Profit

In today’s current job-heavy market, there are some charity jobs that will produce literally hundreds of applications, particularly the more generic administration roles.  It’s daunting facing such a mountain of paperwork, and it can be tricky to know where to start.  In this post, we look at ways to make it easy to shortlist applicants to find the people you want to interview.

Unlike recruiting for more specialist roles, where you may need to compare applicants with very different CVs, the goal here is to exclude as many unsuitable candidates in the shortest possible time.


Log all applications

Firstly, best practice is to log all applications with the candidate’s name, email and source of their application.  When you scan their CV you can also add in some brief notes on their skills and experience.  This may seem like a lot of work already, but it will help you keep track of who you’ve rejected, who you might be interested in and where your applications are coming from (useful for deciding where to place future advertising).


Define your criteria

Before you start going through CVs, it’s very important to define exactly what your ideal candidate will look like.  You should use your job description and person specification to pull together two lists; essential criteria and desirable criteria.  Be really strict about the criteria you term ‘essential’ – as a rule of thumb there should be twice as many desirables as essentials.

You can then go through your CVs and score each against your lists of criteria.  Any that don’t meet all of the essential criteria can be quickly discarded.  Working to lists of criteria also allows you to split up the CVs with other team members and ensures you are all shortlisting on the same terms.

It’s also a good idea to decide before you start to shortlist how many candidates you want to interview – this will help avoid the temptation to keep anyone in who ‘may’ be suitable.



Conduct your shortlist in stages

The quickest way to shortlist is to do it in stages.  The first stage is to run through all the CVs and simply exclude those who don’t meet your essential criteria list, and note this on your spreadsheet.  This should immediately make the pile of CVs much more manageable.

In stage 2 you should go through the remaining CVs and assign the candidates scores against each item in your list of essential criteria, recording the scores on your spreadsheet.  This will give you an easy way to rank candidates and give you a top ten to work with.  At this stage, you should also check for any inconsistencies in their CV and make sure that their presentation, spelling and grammar, and attention to detail are flawless on both their CV and covering letter (if applicable).

In the final stage, you should start with a list of candidates who would all be able to do the fundamentals of the role.  You can now go through and score them against your list of desirable criteria, which will help single out the candidates who will be able to pick things up more quickly and contribute that bit extra to your organisation.

Bear in mind that it is extremely unlikely that you’ll find a candidate who matches every single item on both your list of essentials and desirables.  Indeed, the very best candidate may sometimes require you to think outside the box.  But it’s important to try and stick to your original lists wherever possible in order to minimise unconscious bias as much as possible.


Give everyone a response

Everyone who takes the time to apply for a role should receive some form of response, even if it is just an automated email.  Keeping your spreadsheet of applicants up to date should make it easier to ensure everyone gets an update on their application.

This is particularly important for charities, whose audiences of employees, volunteers, supporters and advocates tend to widely overlap.  A simple email thanking candidates for their interest but expressing regret that not everyone can be asked to interview should be enough.  You can even remind them of all the other ways they could support your organisation.


Sounds like a lot of work?

The fact is, however you manage the process, shortlisting for most roles is always going to require a big investment of your time.  TPP regularly handle roles for our clients that generate high volumes of response; we recently had 116 applications for a Finance Assistant role and regularly deal with vacancies generating several hundred applications.

Some organisations prefer to recruit for lower level roles internally, but these are the ones that typically eat into your valuable time.  If you think your working hours could be better spent, talk to us about handling your vacancy.  We’ll deal with all the administration and candidate liaising, and will interview all candidates, prior to sending you a shortlist.  We also try to make sure all applicants have a positive recruitment experience, whether they are successful or not, and we will always present your organisation to candidates as an attractive opportunity.  And best of all, you only pay when you appoint a candidate.

For more information about our recruitment services, visit our website or contact us on 020 7198 6000 or info@tpp.co.uk.