Screening Interviews: Tips to Spot the Best Candidates

Job interviews have the greatest influence on a candidate's decision to accept a job offer. Hence, recruiters need to prepare interviews as carefully as candidates do. This preparation sets you up for long-term success by hiring the best candidates and minimizing hiring costs.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss screening interviews – the importance, how to conduct them, tips, and common mistakes to avoid. Additionally, the tips provided here come from individuals with decades of hiring experience across various domains.

What Is a Screening Interview?

An initial interview used to assess whether a candidate meets the basic job requirements is known as a screening interview. These interviews are less about testing practical expertise and more about understanding factors such as work ethic, time zone, flexibility, past experiences, and so on. The interview typically lasts 15-30 minutes and helps hiring teams assess a candidate’s basic qualifications.

Considering that 70% of candidates lie on their resumes, screening interviews are a major time saver. Hence, only two to four candidates make it to the final interview round. 

Why Is a Screening Interview Important?

As discussed above, screening interviews save the time and trouble of making wrong hires, which is a situation faced by 75% of employers. One reason is that plenty of experienced, high-quality candidates aren't always great at selling themselves on paper, and this skill gap can prevent you from hiring the right person. 

Here are the top 5 benefits of screening interviews beyond time savings:

• Verifies basics: Reveals critical information such as educational background, work history, and fundamental skills.

• Gauges interest: Assesses a candidate's enthusiasm and commitment to the role, company, and compensation.

• Identifies soft skills: Provides an initial look at communication style and other soft skills not evident from a resume.

• Saves money: Reduces the time and cost associated with lengthy interview processes and prevents recurring expenses from bad hires.

• Checks fit and market alignment: Evaluates cultural fit, salary expectations, and how a candidate’s skills compare with current market standards.

How to Conduct a Screening Interview?

While screening interviews typically last about only half an hour, they require careful planning to ensure you spot the right candidate. This includes selecting interview tools, preparing questions, shortlisting resumes, and inviting candidates to the interview.

Here’s a checklist of tasks you’ll need to complete at each stage:

Before the interview:

• Review the job description to understand your requirements, including qualifications, skills, and experience.

• Develop a screening criterion to facilitate easier and quicker assessment.

• Prepare questions that cover essential skills, expectations, and logistics (location, tech, etc) requirements.

During the interview:

• Briefly introduce yourself, the company, and the job expectations.

• Ask your prepared questions and take notes, paying attention to communication skills and attitude.

• Evaluate whether the candidate’s responses align with the job requirements.

After the interview:

• Compare the candidate’s responses against your screening criteria and shortlist candidates based on that.

• Inform candidates about the progress of their job application.

This checklist will help you stay focused on identifying the best candidates instead of getting lost in last-moment chaos. Next, let’s look at the top tips for spotting the strongest talent.

Top 5 Tips to Spot the Best Candidate During a Screening Interview

Conducting interviews might get a bit overwhelming at times, especially in the case of high-volume hiring. However, to help you make it more fruitful and less tiring, we asked people with decades of hiring experience for their tips on spotting the best candidate. 

Here are the top 5 pointers taken from experts for making screening interviews successful:

1. Look for Alignment

While screening interviews help you assess a candidate's actual technical capabilities, they are equally crucial for identifying cultural fit and role alignment. To do so, ask candidates how they’ve handled complex challenges in their previous roles to see if their coping mechanisms match your company’s pace and style.

For example, hiring a project manager for a large corporation is completely different from hiring one for a 10-person agency. Asking a question like “When finalizing a budget, how do you ensure it moves smoothly across departments, and how do you handle conflicts or pushback?” reveals whether their working style and approach suit your team.

“One thing I’ve learned after years of building teams — both at Zapiy and in earlier ventures — is that screening interviews aren’t just about filtering candidates, they’re about detecting alignment early.

Early in my career, I focused too much on skills; I’d get excited about someone’s impressive portfolio, only to realize later they couldn’t thrive in a fast-moving, feedback-heavy environment. That’s when I shifted my approach.

Now, my screening process is conversational and scenario-based. I ask candidates to walk me through how they handled specific challenges — not hypotheticals, but real ones. You can tell a lot from how someone reflects on failure or teamwork. I also pay close attention to energy and curiosity; people who ask smart questions about the role tend to perform better long term.” — Max Shak, CEO and Founder, Zapiy

2. Use a Structured Yet Flexible Approach

Structured interviews make the hiring process more organized and reduce bias. By following a fixed set of questions for each candidate, you enhance objectivity and ensure more consistent comparisons. This approach brings predictability to interviews, reducing the risk of a wrong hire.

For example, interview conversations can naturally drift into unplanned questions due to cross-replies or tangents. With structured interviews, however, the pattern remains consistent regardless of how the conversation unfolds, ensuring a fair and standardized evaluation.

The most effective way to conduct structured interviews is by using AI interviewers. They naturally minimize bias, adhere to your prescribed format, and ensure that every candidate is assessed consistently.

“We use clear knock-out questions early on to confirm minimum eligibility and cultural fit. This helps us filter candidates who align with the company’s values before moving to deeper conversations. Once the basics are clear, we focus on how candidates think, learn, and adapt in dynamic environments, which is essential in roles.

It allows us to focus our energy on individuals who show both skill and potential for growth. This structured but flexible approach has significantly reduced wrong hires and made the next interview stage more efficient.” — Christopher Pappas, Founder, eLearning Industry

3. Prioritize Specificity in Responses

Candidates who share concrete outcomes with measurable results tend to be more confident and experienced. Confident candidates naturally explain the what, how, and why behind their work, making it easier to distinguish them from those giving surface-level answers.

Generic or vague responses, on the other hand, often signal that a candidate is unprepared or lacks a deep understanding of their own experience.

For example, a candidate who describes how they handled a website going down during a high-traffic Black Friday sale demonstrates real-world experience. In contrast, a candidate who responds with generic 'best practices' when asked about handling a difficult situation may not have directly faced such challenges.

“Whenever a candidate is able to describe outcomes with numbers for impact, that tells me for sure these are the persons who have done the work.

Tone consistency is the other clear signal I use, the person who sounds as confident and grounded on one screening question as he does on another will most likely be the better performer in the long run.” — JZ Tay, Founder, WFH Alert

4. Observe Self-Awareness and Curiosity

Good candidates think systematically and can clearly walk you through their steps, including the reasoning behind each decision. They show curiosity and self-driven learning, openly acknowledging gaps in their experience while demonstrating initiative to fill them. 

For example, a candidate who admits they haven’t worked with a certain system but explains how they taught themselves a new skill through hands-on practice signals both adaptability and motivation. Conversely, candidates who give only textbook answers or can’t explain why they took specific actions on past projects are likely less experienced or thoughtful, making them a potential red flag during screening.

“I ask candidates to describe their troubleshooting process on a specific electrical problem—breaker keeps tripping, intermittent power loss, whatever fits their claimed experience level. The ones who immediately jump to "replace the panel" or give textbook answers usually haven't spent real time in the field. The keepers walk me through their diagnostic steps, mention checking connections first, talk about what they'd use to test, and admit when they'd call for backup. That tells me they think systematically and know their limits.

The red flag I watch for: candidates who can't explain why they did something a certain way in past jobs, just what they did. If someone tells me they "installed 400 amp service" but can't walk through load calculations or why they sized conductors the way they did, they either weren't the one actually doing the work or they're just following orders without understanding. I need people who think, not robots who pull wire.” — Bruce Kemp, President, Lighthouse Energy Company

5. Be Transparent About the Role

Avoid exaggerating the job requirements and responsibilities to attract the best candidates. Being transparent about the role will protect you from irrelevant candidates from the beginning. This is because candidates who understand the full scope of the job can self-select early, saving you time on irrelevant applications.

For example, if a customer support role involves handling frustrated customers or managing high call volumes, mention this upfront instead of describing it vaguely as a “dynamic” or “fast-paced” environment. This transparency helps candidates set clear expectations about the job and attracts those who are genuinely prepared for its realities.

Additionally, ensure that candidates have the opportunity to research your company and the role before the interview. This is important because job seekers failing to gather enough information about your organization contributes to 47% of interview failures.

“There are always going to be proprietary lists that will help you hire the best people, but you can keep it simple by sticking to these two key principles: stop lying in your job posts and be transparent about the expectations of the job. I've been interviewing folks for the better part of nearly two decades and if there is something that I've learned is that it doesn't do you any good to rebrand a challenging job with the euphemism of "fast-paced" or a "growth opportunity." 

If you are facing a situation where all of your good hands walked out of a job, you don't have to disclose the details to the micrometer, but you are best to let your candidates know of the chaos they will be walking into. You want to let them self-select before you spend all of your money onboarding someone who is going to bail on you in 30 days. ” — Dr. Thomas W. Faulkner, Founder and Principal Consultant, Faulkner HR Solutions

6. Use Data-Driven Evaluations

Carefully preparing a scoring rubric helps evaluate skills, behavior, and problem-solving approaches objectively. This is also an essential part of structured interviews, helping to maintain alignment throughout the hiring process. A rubric further reduces bias by providing clear criteria for what qualifies as acceptable or outstanding performance.

For example, assigning 1 point to candidates who lack core technical understanding, 3 points to those who meet expectations, and 5 points to those who exceed expectations makes it easier and faster to identify suitable candidates.

Interwiz AI helps you define evaluation criteria and set the difficulty level of questions during the interview design phase. Once you’ve prepared your screening questions and candidates complete their interviews, it:

• Automatically generates assessment weightage to simplify shortlisting.

• Generates detailed insights such as numerical scores, evaluator remarks, and breakdowns across different aspects, including proctoring score, English proficiency, and role-specific performance.

• Produces a summary report for each candidate, giving you a clear overview of their overall performance.

“A technique that has proven highly successful is using a scoring rubric for candidate responses. By assigning numerical values to specific skills and behaviors, it becomes easier to compare candidates objectively. This method also helps mitigate unconscious bias, as the focus remains on the evidence presented in their answers.

To further refine my selection process, I incorporate a brief skills assessment tailored to the role before the interview. This step allows candidates to demonstrate their abilities in a practical context, providing insight beyond their resume. I've found that this supplementary approach helps to weed out candidates who may not follow through on their verbal assurances.” — COO, Versys Media

Common Mistakes to Avoid During a Screening Interview

Overlooking minor details can make a big difference in interview outcomes. Avoiding these mistakes will help you conduct more insightful conversations. 

Let’s look at common hiring mistakes and how to avoid them.

Asking Only Hypothetical Questions

While asking hypothetical questions helps you dig deeper into the candidate’s thought process, neglecting to assess their real experience can prevent you from spotting the right candidate. 

Create a mix of skill qualifications, background checks, and logistics questions to ensure you cover all aspects of the job requirements. This also helps you follow an evaluation rubric and not overwhelm the candidate.

Not Allowing for Natural Follow-Up

Strictly sticking to a script without allowing for conversational follow-up prevents you from gathering deeper insights about the candidate. While structured interviews are essential for successful hiring, expecting candidates to provide pre-determined responses can lead to wrong hires.

Let your candidates share their ideas. Give them time to process their thoughts, and avoid rushing the interview to reduce the risk of mis-hires and wasted effort in later stages.

Displaying Negative Body Language

Negative body language can break the entire interview vibe. Therefore, it’s important to be in a positive mood to increase the chances of a successful interview. 

To avoid such issues, maintain good posture, make appropriate eye contact, and smile genuinely. Being aware of your gestures and tone can also help project confidence and engagement throughout the conversation.

Asking Irrelevant Questions

Though it is sometimes believed that asking irrelevant questions can reveal unstated qualities and test behavior under uncertainty, these questions can distract from assessing a candidate’s actual suitability for the role. This reduces the effectiveness of the screening process and may lead to poor hiring decisions, as the evaluation is no longer based on job-related criteria.

Instead, keeping questions relevant ensures a fair, efficient, and focused assessment. A focused assessment respects both the candidate’s time and the interviewer’s objective of identifying the best talent.

Questions to Ask in a Screening Interview

A mix of skill qualification, background check, and logistics questions makes the best screening interviews. Here’s what these categories mean and why they matter.

Skill Qualification

These questions assess whether the candidate possesses the technical skills, knowledge, and experience required for the role. These questions help you determine if the candidate meets the core job requirements and has the expertise to perform key tasks without extensive training.

Examples:

• Can you explain the concept of visual hierarchy and why it's important in designing effective landing pages?

• What are some common strategies for layout management in GUI development, and how do they contribute to effective visual arrangement?

Background Check

These explore a candidate’s work history, achievements, and motivations. It’s not about legal background checks here, but to understand their professional journey. These questions provide context for the candidate’s experience and help assess cultural fit, career consistency, and reliability.

Examples:

• What strategies do you employ to ensure the reliability and precision of software systems interfacing with bespoke hardware?

• How do you ensure your designs are aligned with various acquisition channels like SEO, SEM, and Social Media?

Logistics

These clarify practical details that affect hiring and onboarding. They address the candidate’s availability, location, compensation expectations, and work setup. These questions ensure there are no logistical conflicts before moving forward, saving time for both the recruiter and candidate.

Examples:

• Are you comfortable using your personal equipment initially, or would you require company-provided hardware?

• How do you typically structure your day when working remotely to stay productive and aligned with team goals?

Interwiz AI helps you create a balanced mix of these questions and allows you to customize the templates based on your requirements. This includes:

• Adding or deleting questions of your choice

• Adding custom questions based on your preferences

• Controlling the proportion of each category according to your needs

Speed Up Hiring With InterWiz Screening Interviews

InterWiz helps you streamline the redundant part of conducting interviews, allowing you to focus on understanding your requirements better and setting your candidates up for success. It works with you throughout the hiring process, from shortlisting resumes to generating assessments and evaluating the candidates.

The InterWiz AI assistant is trained by expert recruiters, hence, the questions and assessments it generates align closely to your requirements. Yet, you’ve full control over designing your interviews and get to control everything from the shortlisting criteria to questions, and interview length.

Start your free trial today to see how Interwiz can be the only HR assistant you’ll ever need.