“Screened candidates” is one of the most used phrases in recruitment, and one of the least defined. For some agencies it means a keyword match against your job description. For us it means three separate steps, done by people, before a profile reaches you.

Here’s what each step involves, and just as important, what it doesn’t cover.

Stage one: a proper conversation

A recruiter calls every candidate. Not a two-minute availability check, but a real conversation about:

  • What they’ve actually done. Projects, teams, targets, tools. We ask for specifics, because a job title can mean very different things at different companies.
  • How they communicate. For many roles, especially in sales, customer support and client-facing work, the call itself is part of the assessment.
  • What they expect to earn, including variable pay, so there are no surprises at the offer stage.
  • When they can join, and whether their notice period is negotiable.
  • Why they want to move. A career step and an escape from a bad situation are both valid, but they lead to different conversations.

If the numbers or the timing don’t work for your role, the candidate doesn’t go forward.

Stage two: a senior review

Before any profile is sent, someone senior on our team reads it alongside the brief. Their job is to ask the questions a busy recruiter might miss. Does this person’s experience really match the must-haves? Is there a gap in the CV that hasn’t been explained? Would we hire them ourselves?

It’s a simple step, and it catches a surprising number of near-misses.

Stage three: a skills check

We test the skills the role depends on, rather than taking them on trust. What that looks like depends on the job:

  • For a developer or QA engineer, it’s a technical exercise or a structured technical conversation, with video on.
  • For a site engineer, it’s detailed questions about specific projects, scale, methods and software.
  • For a sales role, it’s what they’ve sold, to whom, at what deal size, and against what target.
  • For support and BPO roles, it’s language, communication and shift readiness, checked on the phone.

What you get at the end

Each candidate arrives with their own CV and a short note from us: fit against your must-haves, current and expected pay, notice period, why they want to move, what we verified, and any risks we noticed. You can see a sample on our How We Work page.

What screening doesn’t replace

We think it’s important to be clear about this.

  • Your interviews. Screening narrows the field and removes obvious mismatches. Judging fit with your team is still your call.
  • Full background verification. Checks on address, education, past employers and court records happen after an offer, through your verification partner or one we arrange. Running them on every applicant before a shortlist would add days and cost money on people you’d never meet.
  • A guarantee of how someone will perform. No process can promise that. What we can do is check in on day 7, 30, 60 and 90 after joining, and provide replacement cover for 90 days under the terms we agree with you.

Why we do it this way

Matching a CV to a job description is quick, but it pushes the real screening onto you, in the form of interviews with people who were never right for the role. Doing the work earlier means you meet fewer people, and more of them are worth meeting.

If you’d like to see how this would work for a role you’re hiring for, let’s talk.