What do you do when you get “bitten” by too many applicants on your job post?

1. Pause your job post…now! Once you get past 30 or so job applications, it’s hard to sift through them.  If you’re getting a lot, pause your job post inside your OnlineJobs.ph account so they don’t keep coming in.

2. Here’s the response I send to people:
—–
Thanks for applying. I appreciate it.

Here’s where I ask question 1?
Here’s where I ask question 2?
Here’s where I ask question 3?
——

The questions could be “Tell me more about yourself” or “Tell me how you would solve this problem” or “Tell me how many years experience you have with X” or…
The point is to ask questions to get a conversation going.
The questions change depending on the position I’m hiring for.

3. I send it to everyone whose application looks good.
If they don’t follow directions from my job post, I don’t reply to them.
If they sent me a form letter as an application, I don’t reply.
If they’re clearly not qualified, I don’t reply.

4. If I get more than 50 applications, I’ll pick the best ~20 or so and reply to them. I’m not super picky about the ones I reply to or not…I just need to narrow it down.

5. Now the weed out process starts.
Some will drop out as you keep asking questions.
Some you’ll drop out as you get their responses.
Some won’t do a test task.
Some will do a test task poorly.

I cover my exact recruiting process in One VA Away. In it, I show you how to weed out 50% of applications before you ever even look at the application.
Then the first set of questions usually weeds out another 25%.

It’s effective. It’s fast. It ends with a great worker almost every time.

John