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🚨 Basic Recruiting Stuff, Week 5 🚨

Is your screening process passing over the perfect fit, or is it set up to unveil the best in the market? The hardest part isn’t finding talent—it’s ensuring every viable candidate truly makes it to your desk.

Welcome to Week 5 of my ‘Basic Recruiting Stuff’ series—your weekly dose of recruiting fundamentals, common pitfalls, and practical solutions from nearly two decades in the search business.

💥This Week’s Focus: Screening Beyond the Buzzwords💥

✅ What Should Happen: The ideal screening process is a streamlined, evidence-based filter—turning a clearly defined opportunity into a shortlist of highly relevant, genuinely capable finalists. It should enable you to spend your time with candidates who meet what the role really requires (not just what’s “nice to have”).

🚩 What Usually Happens: Most processes begin with an idea of the “perfect hire,” but the screening filter gets clogged by over-crafted wish lists—often ruling out great candidates before you ever get the chance to say hello. On the other hand, shallow screening lets in talent that looks good on paper but doesn’t stack up where it matters. The real bottleneck? Screening can only work if you’ve engaged the entire relevant talent pool—and if your job description sets a realistic precedent for who should make it through.

💡 Why It Matters: If the screening left at the top is unrealistic, inconsistent, or reliant on guesswork, it not only slows your time-to-hire but also leaves the door open for unintentional bias and lost opportunity. Without a process rooted in clear, minimum viable criteria, you risk missing out on high-potential candidates who should have been considered from the start.

🛠️ The ATS Approach: At Asymmetric Talent, we lay the groundwork with a deep discovery to define the must-haves—collaborating with you to set realistic expectations before talent mapping or outreach begins. Our market mapping and candidate engagement leave no stone unturned: we identify and engage every relevant candidate, then apply a precise, data-driven screening process that translates your true priorities into a shortlist of finalists. That means no unicorn hunting and no filtering out hidden gems before they’re even in the race.

🎯 The Takeaway: To get the best results, start with clarity—attract and engage the full market, then screen for what really matters. Your best candidates may never have matched your “wish list” but could be exactly who you need.

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