When you want to scale your start-up tech business, time is most likely a luxury that you don’t have. You’ll be keen to act fast, to hire rapidly and set your organisation on a path to hyper growth, right? You probably won’t have the time to spend hours and hours sifting through resumes and interviewing candidates… especially if you’re making multiple hires. And that’s why you look for hiring support - whether that’s in house recruitment teams or outsourced talent acquisition specialists. They can help you save a ton of time (and money) by vetting your candidates ahead of your interview with them. If they prioritise pre-interviewing over pre-screening. Because not all pre-hiring processes are the same. And you wouldn’t want to be in a position where you’re still wasting time and money when recruiting candidates. What’s a typical pre-screening process? A typical pre-screening or pre-evaluation process when hiring sales performers or tech talent is all about making sure applicants meet the basic requirements and reach a certain standard. It’s about making sure they’re suitable for the role - that they have the experience and qualifications needed and can do the job they’re applying for. A pre-screening process is great at weeding out unsuitable resumes and ineffective candidates, so it can save you a lot of time and effort. But typically, a pre-screening process just identifies those who can do the job. When you’re in scale-up mode and looking for rapid growth, you won’t just want a candidate who can do the job. You’ll want the very best candidate to do an amazing job. And with a traditional pre-screening process, that still requires time, effort and money on your part. The challenge with ‘surface’ pre-screening Pre-screening often falls down in saving team leaders, VPs and CEOs time because it doesn’t go into enough detail with applicants. It scratches the surface to check eligibility, rather than digging deep to check for a good match. In some recruitment circles, it’s almost like box checking: Does the candidate have appropriate qualifications? Check Does the candidate have X years’ experience? Check Is the candidate local to the area for an on-site role? Check Could the candidate do the role? Check … move to the interview pile. That’s great if you want a load of resumes. But if you’re hiring for key roles - in a short time span - you’ll want the best of the best in front of you. A smaller number of the very top candidates, rather than a wider pool of suitable applicants. A pre-screening process could also filter out those candidates who might not appear right on paper - e.g. too far out of area - but are willing to relocate and are a perfect match in all other areas. There could be some hidden gems in that resume pile that might smash all sales targets, support huge growth and be an invaluable asset to your business. You don’t want to screen them out unnecessarily… but you also won’t want to spend hours and hours trying to find them. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to? The power of in-depth, pre-interviewing Imagine if you didn’t have to waste time and money on multiple interviews? Imagine you didn’t have to sit through hours of questioning and hours of deliberation? Imagine you didn’t have to worry about wasting budget on the wrong hires? That’s what an in-depth, pre-interviewing process provides. It doesn't just focus on surface level attributes on a resume. It digs into what they mean, why they’re relevant and if they’re truly beneficial. A pre-interview process is a step behind resume screening. It’s about understanding the candidates themselves. It moves beyond qualifications and experiences to ask deeper questions likes: What type of sales training have you had? How has that helped? What vertical markets have you covered? What levels of negotiation? How do you typically work? How do you want to work? How do you perform in your team compared to others? It focuses on all the logistics and admin ahead of time, dealing with key factors like salary, commission, benefits, relocation, notice period and more… so that interviews are shorter and more focused. So you save time and money by only speaking with pre-matched candidates that are ready to thrive in your sales environment. A pre-interview process saves you time and money by making sure: Candidates are ready to leave their current role Candidates are actually looking for what you’re offering Culture, personalities and approaches align Candidate will be a true asset Pre-screened might mean pre-qualified.. but it doesn’t mean pre-matched. Pre-interviewing makes sure you get the very best matches. It’s the faster route to making the right hiring choices. And it’s what we do at ORG3D, an integral part of our SCALE3D talent acquisition product. Because when we put the time and effort into pre-interviewing, you can spend less time, effort and money on hiring. If you’d like to learn more - get in touch here .