After placing your ads it should only take a couple of days before applications will start to pour in. It is a good idea to review each application as it comes in, if practical and sort into Yes, No, and Maybe piles. The Yes pile should be applicants that have all of the minimum qualifications that you are looking for, the No pile will have none of the qualifications that you are looking for, and the Maybe pile will have at least some of the qualifications that you are looking for.
Depending on the number of respondents, or your company’s policy, it is best to start calling people back and set up initial interviews as soon as possible to ensure that qualified candidates are still available. First contact the applicants in the Yes pile and set up an interview on a specific date . Don’t be ambiguous about when the interview can be, instead select one or two days and allow applicants to select time slots on one of those days. This will help condense the amount of disruption the interview process will have on your company, and it will minimize the expense related to paying the salary of a manager to sit in on an interview instead of doing more important aspects of their job. Depending on the depths of interviews that you are planning to give, you should probably estimate that a first interview will last about 15 minutes. Schedule interviews in half-hour increments so that you, and other personnel involved, can review the applicant’s responses and jot down notes before the next applicant arrives for their interview.
Even though the Maybe pile applicants don’t have all the qualifications you want, don’t discard them yet as circumstances may lead you to consider them later. Keep Maybe’s on stand-by in case all of the Yes’s fail to meet your expectations. For the No pile, if you are sure that you don’t want to consider them, send out a form letter letting them know you have not selected them to interview. This will help eliminate unwanted calls from applicants wanting to know about the status of their application.
Dear _____,
Thank you for applying for the XX position. We received many highly qualified applicants and have narrowed our search to only a few people. Unfortunately your application was not selected. Best wishes with your job search.