One of your main goals as an employer is to hire candidates who will fit well with your team and stay for the long haul. You want qualified individuals who have previous work experience and can step into the role and succeed. Too often, you interview applicants who miss the mark on these important criteria and serve as a waste of your limited time. In order to make sure only the most qualified make it through, try implementing these four ways to prescreen candidates before their first interview.

1. Screen all the resumes

Before you take the time to talk to someone, you need to make sure they’re actually capable of doing the job. This can usually be determined by a scan of their resume to see if they have relevant work experience. Depending on your company size, this may seem like an impossible task considering how many applications you’ll receive for an open position. Fortunately, technology has made the step much easier for employers and human resources departments alike. Some systems create a ranking and sorting system to aid in your search. Once you’ve found qualified resumes, narrow them down even more based on who you like best and think would work with your team.

2. Schedule a phone interview

After you’ve narrowed down your applications, schedule a phone interview to help you get a feel for who the candidate is outside of their accomplishments. While this is customarily shorter than a face-to-face interview, it can provide you with enough information to decide if you want to learn more about this person or scratch them off your list.

3. Investigate their work

If you’ve decided to pursue a candidate further, confirming their experience is your next step in prescreening. It will help you learn if the candidate is actually capable of doing what they said they can. This can be done in two ways – by following up with the companies listed on the resume and/or contacting references.

4. Check out their social media

Now that you like a candidate and you’ve determine their work experience is legitimate, it’s time to look into who they are personally before scheduling an in-person interview. In 2018, there’s no better place to look than social media.

Experienced candidates will likely only have professional content available, but you never know what you might find. Someone you thought would be an excellent fit may share racist or politically incorrect articles, proving they wouldn’t be a good fit for your team. People use their social profiles as a form of expression, and what they say can make your decision easier one way or the other.

Tracking unemployment

While adding new talent to your team is exciting, sometimes layoffs due to economic downturns are inevitable. If you’re going through this or see it on your horizon, check out Unemployment Tracker to help monitor your unemployment claims to save you money.