Prescreening Interview

What a prescreening interview is

A prescreening interview (مقابلة الفرز المبدئي), also called a phone screen or a screening interview, is a short conversation with an applicant before the main interviews. Its purpose is to check a small number of conditions whose answer does not appear in the application, in order to establish whether the application continues through the process or stops there.

It is a defined stage within the candidate pipeline (خط إمداد المرشحين), placed between the arrival of an application and the first real assessment of ability. A candidate pipeline is a sequence of stages through which a candidate moves, not a list of names, and the prescreening interview is the first of those stages in which two parties speak to each other.

A prescreening interview decides whether to proceed, not whether to hire

Confusing the two decisions is at the root of criticism the stage attracts. A prescreening interview answers one question: can this application still continue? It does not answer the question of who is best.

Its output is therefore binary: continue or stop, with the reason written in a single line. An organisation that turns the output into a score out of ten has loaded a conversation of a quarter of an hour with a judgement for which no information was gathered.

What a prescreening interview asks

The questions that fit here are of one kind: those whose answer is short, certain, and changes the course of the application by itself.

• What the advertisement required and the application did not show, such as a requirement that a CV may not mention.
• Readiness for the actual conditions of the role: the place of work, the working pattern, and travel where the role involves it.
• When the applicant can start, because a distant start date can take an application out of an urgent vacancy even when the applicant is suitable.
• The expected pay range, because discovering a gap after four interviews is a cost to both sides.
• One open question about why the applicant is interested in the role, not to assess them but to find out whether they read the advertisement.

Everything else is deferred. Asking a candidate at this stage about the hardest situation they have faced, a question of the kind set out under behavioral interview questions, takes time from the later interview and produces an answer that will not be compared with anyone else’s.

The questions also collect information about the applicant. What may be collected from an applicant, and the purpose for which it is collected, are governed by separate provisions and a competent authority. The definition of a prescreening interview does not set those provisions out, and their absence from it does not mean they do not exist.

When a prescreening interview pays for itself: a worked calculation

The stage does not save time in itself. It saves time only if it stops enough applications, and that number is calculated before the stage is adopted, not after. The figures below are assumed; they show the method and do not report a rate.

A vacancy receives 300 applications, and 60 candidates come through CV screening. The first real interview lasts 45 minutes and is attended by the manager. The prescreening interview lasts 12 minutes and is conducted by a recruiter.

• Without prescreening: 60 times 45 minutes is 2,700 minutes, or 45 hours of first interviews.
• With prescreening that stops 25 applications: the calls cost 60 times 12 minutes, which is 720 minutes, or 12 hours. That leaves 35 candidates at 45 minutes each, which is 1,575 minutes, or 26.25 hours. The total is 38.25 hours, a saving of 6.75 hours.
• With prescreening that stops only 5 applications: 12 hours of calls, plus 55 times 45 minutes, which is 2,475 minutes, or 41.25 hours. The total is 53.25 hours, so the stage costs 8.25 hours more than it saves.

The break even point follows directly. For the two totals to be equal, the candidates left after prescreening must take 33 hours of first interviews, which at 45 minutes each is 44 candidates. The stage therefore has to stop at least 16 of the 60 applications to break even, and below that it loses time however well the calls go.

The 12 and 45 minutes are assumptions chosen to show the calculation. We found no source recommending a duration for the call or a number of questions for it. Nor did we find a published rate of applicants stopped at this stage against which an organisation could compare its results, so the break even point is calculated for each vacancy from that vacancy’s figures.

Beyond its result, the calculation says something about how the stage is designed. If prescreening stops few applications, one possible reason is that what it asks could have been asked on the application form. Another is that the advertisement did not state a deciding condition, so people who never met it entered the process. In both cases the remedy lies before the call, not in it.

Time is not the only thing being weighed. The example measures time saved, not the quality of the people hired, and we found no published measurement linking this stage to hiring outcomes. A short call that reaches the applicant may also serve them better, and protect the organisation’s reputation better, than a long silence, and that value does not appear in the calculation above.

Why a prescreening interview cannot stand in for a structured interview

A structured interview asks every candidate for the same role the same questions in the same order, and scores the answers against a rating scale defined in advance. Fixing those elements is what makes comparison possible.

A prescreening interview is too short to carry that, and it is not meant to. If it is used to shortlist on impression, it becomes a stage that excludes on an unwritten basis, and a disciplined interview is then built on a group of candidates chosen without discipline.

The practical rule: every condition on which an applicant is stopped at this stage is written down before the calls begin, not inferred from them.

How a prescreening interview differs from the stages around it

The stages next to it in the process can be called by its name. In each case the difference lies in the question being asked, not in where the stage falls.

• CV screening. It is one party reading a document, whereas a prescreening interview is a conversation between two. In practice, reading a document yields only what was written in it, but a conversation yields what was not written, and that is the reason the prescreening interview exists.
• A short technical interview. It measures ability at something specific and needs an assessor who knows the field, whereas a prescreening interview checks known conditions whose verification needs no expertise. Calling a technical interview a prescreening interview hides the fact that the process contains a measurement, and that measurement needs a written standard.
• An automated interview. It has the candidate record answers to fixed questions with no one on the other side, so the candidate cannot ask anything or seek clarification. A prescreening interview rests on an exchange, and an organisation that substitutes one for the other has obtained something different, even though the two occupy a similar place in the process.
• Checking information and references. It comes at the end of the process, for a candidate about whom a decision has been made, and its subject is whether what the candidate said is accurate, not whether they continue through the stages. Moving it to the start of the process requires the applicant to disclose their employers before any relationship exists between them and the organisation.

Who conducts a prescreening interview, and where the outcome is recorded

A prescreening interview can be conducted by a recruiter rather than the line manager, because what it checks are known conditions, not technical expertise. The manager conducts it when the deciding condition is technical and cannot be tested with a general question.

Its outcome is recorded in the applicant tracking system (نظام تتبّع المتقدمين), not in an individual’s email. An applicant tracking system brings applications together in one place and tracks each candidate through the stages. The reason is practical: an applicant stopped for a circumstantial reason may suit another vacancy two months later, and will not be considered for it if the reason for stopping exists only in the head of the person who spoke to them.

How the reason for stopping is worded is what makes it useful later. A reason written as a description of the situation, such as being unable to start before a known date, can be checked two months later to see whether it still applies. A reason written as a judgement of the person cannot be checked or reviewed, and stays in the record as a description with no known basis.

In the sources we reviewed, we found no statutory provision addressing this stage specifically, whether in how it is conducted, how it is recorded or how the applicant is answered. So it cannot be said that the stage is required by law, nor that it is prohibited.

Cases that change the role of a prescreening interview

Everything above assumes a single vacancy that has received a large number of applications from people outside the organisation. Outside that description the stage changes or falls away:

• An internal candidate. Their readiness for the conditions of the role and their start date are known to the organisation, or easy to find out without a call, which leaves only what concerns the new role. A full screening call with a current employee can come across as a sign that the organisation does not know who already works for it.
• A candidate referred by an employee. The application has passed through someone who knows both the organisation and the candidate, so some of the questions may already have been asked. Dropping the stage entirely is the opposite error, because the person who made the referral does not necessarily know the conditions in the advertisement.
• Volume hiring, where a large number of people are appointed to one role. In high volume hiring the stage becomes the heaviest part of the process rather than the lightest, with less conversation and more standardisation: a set number of questions with a single script. Otherwise what is asked varies with whoever makes the call, and at that scale the variation produces inconsistent exclusions that are hard to trace once they have happened.
• A single vacancy with a single deciding condition. If the condition can be asked about on the application form, that is where it goes, and a call in this case asks about what could have been written down.
• A candidate the organisation invited. They did not apply at all, so the order of the call is reversed: it begins with what introduces them to the role, and the questions come afterwards.

What undermines a prescreening interview

• Letting it run long until it becomes a full interview with no standard, which delays the process and uses up both sides’ time.
• Changing its questions from one applicant to the next, so that some applicants are excluded on a condition nobody else was asked about.
• Forgetting that it is a first meeting and part of the candidate experience. An organisation that approached a candidate itself, through sourcing rather than an application from the candidate, and then runs a short interrogation, loses that candidate at the very stage where it meant to win them.
• Leaving the applicant without an answer afterwards, although this is the easiest stage at which to reply, because the reason for stopping is specific and can be stated.
• Relying on it alone to endorse a candidate when time is short, so that a quick stage replaces one that measures, and the time saved is paid for after the appointment.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Structured Interview
• Behavioral Interview Questions
• Candidate Experience
• Selection Ratio
• Time to Fill