What is Technical Screening? | Technical Screening Questions
Technical
Screening is the process of testing and evaluating a candidate’s skills and
experiences against a set of requirements using conversation-friendly questions
to uncover strengths and weaknesses without appearing confrontational. There
are three types of screening questions.
1. Generic Screening Questions
2. Job Description Screening Questions
3. Resume Screening Questions
Generic Screening Questions This is used to garner information about the candidate’s career,
technical background knowledge and past experiences. These are the types of
questions asked when the recruiter does not have enough information about the
job requirements or the candidate’s resume (or has not spent time reviewing to
understand both documents). A samples generic question is:
“How did you end up as
Enterprise Architect?”
Prepare to
spend some time listening to your candidate on this one. You may hear
information from when he/she finished college, educational qualifications, to
the current position he/she holds. From this question you can get the number of
years a candidate has in a specific technology. Be attentive to this one…
Job Description Screening Questions: This is the type of
question a technical recruiter would ask after the job description has been
fully reviewed and understood. In this phase, the technical recruiter
must/should go back to the hiring manager with questions. I refer to this as
the Request for Information phase. Just ask any human resources professional,
and they will inform you that job descriptions do not always have all the
information that makes it easy for recruiters to find the right candidates.
They’ve been cases of hiring managers asking for experience in a product whose
release number was not yet available in the market. Example ” 2+ years
experience in MS Dynamics CRM 8.1a”. Imagine the indignation felt by a
candidate when asked for his experience in a product not yet released. So
in this case the Request for Information – directed at your hiring manager
should be something like this…
How many
years have you used MS Dynamics CRM 8.1a? Or “How many
developers/administrators do you currently have working on this product?”
Resume Screening Questions: Here the technical screening is based on the
review of the job description and resume combined. The recruiter is now
familiar with all the technical requirements of the job description, and
is able to describe the position as if he/she is the hiring manager (or close
enough).
Technical Screening Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
These are some of the
questions asked on technical screening and here are my thoughts.
How important is the screening of a candidate? – Screening is one of strongest requirements for being a
technical recruiter. This is why the employer or hiring manager is not doing it
him/herself, the hiring manager believes that its your job to find a candidate
that matches their requirement, and how would you find out if this candidate
matches without performing a technical screen. Without a technical screen, a
recruiter may present candidates that are either not qualified or over
qualified, which makes both the candidate and hiring manager upset and diminishes
the recruiter’s credibility.
What
are some easy steps to screen technical resumes or candidates? -There are 3 steps to screen technical resumes:
§ Review and evaluate the job description for questions, skill
(mis)matches, technology etc
§ Evaluate the technical resume, looking for how each skill was
used by candidate
§ List questions from resume and job description, asking candidate
how each required skill was used – keep questions to 3-4 maximum on each
encounter or phone call
Where
can I find sample technical screening or pre-screening questions?
What happens when a recruiter does not call to screen? – When a recruiter does not call to screen, it’s a hit or miss,
more a miss than a hit. The candidate is not really yours to present. You could
of course present the candidate and it may turn out a good match – pure luck,
but remember that becoming successful at your job should not be based on luck
but on good practices. On the other hand, if the un-screened candidate is
presented and turns out a bad match, you would have wasted several hours.
Become more effective with your matching process, make sure you screen your
candidates before presenting.
